One of the biggest things to remember about the health benefits of tea is that tea doesn't act as a replacement for healthy living. It may help your body in a lot of ways, but unless you're already taking care of yourself, it'll be hard to see those benefits.

"It has to be part of a healthy lifestyle," says Melinda Johnson, lecturer and director in the dietetics program at Arizona State University.

Studies have shown that tea might help prevent cancer and cardiovascular disease, reduce inflammation in the body and help with weight control, Johnson says. Though green tea has gotten a lot of attention and some people say it shows the most health benefits, Johnson says the differences between green tea and, for example, black tea are so small as to be almost negligible. They come from the same plants, she says -- they're just processed differently.

"I think it's more of a taste preference," she says. 

The chemical makeup of the tea is what creates the health benefits we see. The antioxidants and chemicals within the plant that keep it healthy transfer into the tea we drink, producing compounds our body then uses to protect itself, Johnson says. 

But we counteract those benefits when we do things like add a lot of cream or sweeteners to tea. 

"Try to develop the taste for unsweetened tea to get the most benefit from that beverage," Johnson says.