Does coffee count as a plant point? And tea and dark chocolate

Yes. Coffee counts as a quarter of a plant point, and only once a week however many cups you drink. The bean is the seed of the coffee plant. Tea counts a quarter as well, and dark chocolate that is at least 70% cocoa counts as a full point.

Below is the reasoning for each, the drinks where nobody has ruled, and the point at which coffee stops being a plant question and becomes a gut one.

Why does coffee count as a plant at all?

Because a coffee bean is a seed. It comes out of the fruit of the Coffea plant, gets roasted and ground, and seeds count in the plant tally the same way sunflower or pumpkin seeds do.

It only scores a quarter because of how little of the plant ends up in the cup. The scoring that dietitians and gut health writers use puts coffee in one small group with tea, herbs, spices, garlic and extra virgin olive oil, all a quarter each. Four of them make a whole point.

None of this is official. The thirty plants target comes from one study, the American Gut Project, published in mSystems in 2018, and the points were added afterwards as a convention. The NHS recommendation in England is still 5 A Day. The full story is in what counts as a plant point.

Does it count once a week or once a cup?

Once a week. The count rewards different plants, not more of the same one, so the first coffee on Monday earns the quarter and every cup after it earns nothing.

It is easy to forget with coffee, because it may be the one plant you have every single day. Seven mornings of coffee is still a quarter.

Does decaf or instant coffee count?

Yes, both. Decaf is the same seed with most of the caffeine taken out, and instant is the same seed brewed and dried. The gut health writers who publish the convention say plainly that instant and decaf count.

They share the one quarter, though, because they are all the same plant. A cafetière at home and an instant at work is still one coffee quarter for the week.

A coffee shop drink counts for its coffee. The milk adds nothing to the plant count and nor does a syrup.

Does tea count as a plant point?

Yes, a quarter. Black, green, white and oolong tea are all made from the leaves of one plant, Camellia sinensis, which means a strict count gives them one quarter between them. No published version of the scoring rules on that, so it is my reading of the “same plant, one point” rule rather than anyone’s ruling.

Herbal teas are a different matter, because they are not tea at all. Peppermint tea is mint, and chamomile is a flowering herb. Under the herbs rule each would be a quarter of its own, and again nobody has ruled on them by name. I would count them, a quarter each, and not lose sleep over it.

Does dark chocolate count as a plant point?

Yes, one whole point, if the bar is at least 70% cocoa. Cocoa beans are the dried, fermented seeds of the cacao tree, and 70% is the line gut health writers draw. Below it, less of the bar is cocoa and more of it is everything else.

Milk chocolate and white chocolate do not appear in any version of the count I have checked. Plain cocoa powder is the same seed as dark chocolate, so I would count it, but it shares the cacao point rather than earning a second one.

Drinking chocolate mixes vary. Under UK labelling law the ingredients are listed in descending order of weight, so if sugar comes before cocoa on the tub, I would not count it.

Coffee, tea and chocolate at a glance

Is coffee good or bad for your gut?

A quarter of a point is not a reason to drink more of it. If your gut is settled, coffee and tea also count towards your fluids, and the government guide is 6 to 8 cups or glasses a day, with water and lower fat milk counting too.

If your gut is not settled, coffee is one of the first things worth a look. For people with IBS, the NHS self help advice is “do not drink more than 3 cups of tea, coffee or any other caffeinated drink a day”. Advice on bloating puts caffeine in coffee and tea alongside fizzy drinks and alcohol as things not to have lots of. And for sleep, the guidance is no tea or coffee in the 6 hours before bed, which matters if you work shifts and your bedtime moves.

There is more on that in is coffee bad for your gut. If coffee is one of several things you suspect, the bloating quiz is a quicker way to work out where to start than cutting it out and hoping.

When coffee is not the question

Some symptoms need a doctor rather than a change of drink, and waiting to see whether cutting back helps is the wrong move with these. The NHS says to call 999 or go to A&E if you have bloating with a swollen stomach and “you’re vomiting blood or your vomit looks like ground coffee”, or if you have “a stomach ache that is severe and came on very suddenly”. See a GP if “you feel bloated regularly” or “you have bloating and also have blood in your poo”.

If you are still deciding what else counts, does rice count as a plant point covers tofu, miso, tahini and honey.