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If it’s weak AF tea then you’re fine. But several tea bags, no. You can get use to drinking water overtime, it’s not really meant to be “fun” (not critiquing you, more just modern systems), I usually recommend finding something like carbonated water or a good quality flavouring for water.
AFAIK your main issues would be caffeine and tannins. Overconsumption of tannins can reduce iron absorption and since it needs to be eliminated from circulation and excreted by liver and kidneys you might be putting a fair bit of strain on these organs.
3-4L is probably too much.
Try making some fruit infused waters. My favorite is pineapple infused water. Its sweet and refreshing. Eventually you will get used to plain water aside from that. Btw I love tea for hydration too so I know your pain.
Have you tried cold brewing high quality tea? I’m doing it daily for dragonwell and there’s an amazing tea from Song of CA. 5gms of tea is good for 1-2 litres of water and it’s delicious. The taste of cold brew is very delicate and there’s less caffeine too.
If teas are that concerning, there should be a warning label like on cigarettes. But in your case, 3-4 liters sound like more than usual. Still, shouldn’t be our fault for drinking that much without any warning.
The only thing I can say for sure is, you’re probably taking in a level of caffeine that is in some way disturbing your circadian rhythm and sleep. The average caffeine consumption quoted in this review (source:FDA) was around 200 mg/day and if my calculations are correct, you could easily be north of 400 mg/day.
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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC6292246/
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Lots of good stuff in this article but this stood out:
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>Lajambe et al examined the question of habituation in a design that compared habitually low caffeine users against high (400 mg per day or above) users in a randomized crossover design. The participants were kept awake for 27 h, and at 3, 5, and 7 h were given either repeated doses of caffeine gum at low or high doses, vs a placebo. They were woken after 8 h and administered the psychomotor vigilance task (PVT). In the high dose caffeine condition, there was impaired sleep maintenance and reduced sleep depth, with the lower habitual users worse affected, although postrecovery PVT performance did not differ by dose or habitual caffeine use.
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Bottom line think about switching half your tea out for decaf, you might sleep better.
I get wanting to get your recommended amount of water in your body each day, but the recommended level is 1,5-2 liters a day, up to 4 if you have been working in warm conditions like the sun or a badly ventilated space. But drinking 4 liters of tea means you probably ingest something like 5-6 liters, given that a lot of food contains water as well. When you say you want to prevent dehydration, do you mean ”I’ve heard I need to drink x amount daily, so I want to do that by the book, even if it means drinking when I’m not thirsty?”
In that case, Here’s a tip for you: don’t worry about the amount of water you manage to get in your body. If your body needs water it has a brilliant way of telling you: it’s called being thirsty.
Drink when you are thirsty, don’t drink if you are not thirsty.
Edit: Obligatory Adam ruins everything on the subject: https://youtu.be/OWASUMMQjj8