Bay Leaf and Cinnamon Tea: How to Make It, and What It Actually Does

Quick answer

Bay leaf and cinnamon tea is two bay leaves and a one-inch cinnamon stick simmered in two cups of water for five minutes. It takes five minutes, costs a couple of rupees, and comes to about 2 to 5 calories a cup.

What it does: it is a warm, aromatic, caffeine-free, almost calorie-free drink. If it replaces a sweetened tea, a soft drink or a 150-calorie coffee, that is a real and useful change. It is pleasant after a meal and before bed.

What it does not do: it does not burn fat, remove toxins, raise your metabolism or suppress your appetite. There is some modest and genuinely mixed evidence that cinnamon affects blood sugar markers, and very little human evidence for bay leaf at all.

The one thing to get right — use a cinnamon stick, not powder, and buy Ceylon cinnamon if you drink this every day. Ordinary cassia dalchini contains coumarin, which affects the liver in high intakes. EFSA’s daily limit works out at about 2 g of cassia cinnamon for a 60 kg adult — less than a teaspoon of powder. Ceylon cinnamon has roughly a hundredth as much. Full explanation below.

Jump to: The recipe · Which cinnamon to use · What it actually does · What it doesn’t do · Who should be careful · Variations · FAQ

The recipe

Prep time: 2 minutes · Cook time: 5 minutes · Total time: 7 minutes · Makes: 2 cups

Ingredients

Ingredient	Quantity
Water	2 cups (about 500 ml)
Bay leaves (tej patta), dried	2 leaves
Cinnamon (dalchini)	1 stick, about 1 inch / 2.5 cm — see the note on which cinnamon below
Optional: lemon juice	½ tsp
Optional: honey	½–1 tsp (adds 10–20 kcal)

If you only have powder: use ¼ teaspoon of cinnamon powder for two cups, not more. A stick is better here, and the reason is in the next section.

Method

1. Bring 2 cups of water to the boil in a small pan.
2. Add the 2 bay leaves and the cinnamon stick. Break the stick once if you want a stronger infusion.
3. Reduce the heat and simmer for 5 minutes, covered. Simmering rather than boiling hard keeps the aromatic oils in the pan instead of in the air. Up to 7 minutes if you like it stronger — past that it turns bitter rather than stronger.
4. Strain into cups. Discard the bay leaves and the cinnamon stick. Do not eat the bay leaf — see the note below.
5. Add lemon or honey if you want, off the heat.

Nutrition, per cup

	Per cup
Energy	2–5 kcal
Carbohydrate	0.5–1 g
Protein	less than 0.5 g
Fat	less than 0.5 g
Fibre	less than 0.5 g

These are approximate. The tea is strained, so almost nothing from the leaf or the bark ends up in the cup — which is also why you will sometimes read that this tea is high in fibre. It is not; the fibre goes in the bin with the bay leaves.

Add a teaspoon of honey and the cup goes from about 3 calories to about 23. That is still a very low-calorie drink, and worth knowing if you are counting.

Never swallow a whole bay leaf. Bay leaves stay stiff and sharp-edged even after simmering, and swallowed whole they are a genuine choking and gastrointestinal hazard. Strain the tea properly, and if you are making this for someone else, check the cup.

Which cinnamon to use — the part most recipes leave out

This is the only safety decision in the recipe, and it is worth two minutes.

Almost all cinnamon sold in India, and most of what is sold worldwide as cinnamon, is cassia (Cinnamomum cassia or C. burmannii). The other kind is Ceylon cinnamon (C. verum), sometimes called true cinnamon — paler, more brittle, layered like a cigar rather than a single thick curl, and usually labelled.

The difference that matters is a compound called coumarin, which in high intakes can affect the liver in susceptible people.

	Coumarin content
Cassia cinnamon	about 1,880–3,260 mg per kg — roughly 1.9 to 3.3 mg per gram
Ceylon cinnamon	up to about 185 mg per kg — trace amounts, roughly 100 times less

EFSA sets a tolerable daily intake for coumarin of 0.1 mg per kilogram of body weight per day — an amount that can be taken daily across a lifetime without adverse effects. Germany’s Federal Institute for Risk Assessment puts the practical consequence simply: a 60 kg adult reaches that limit at about 2 g of cassia cinnamon a day.

Two grams is less than a level teaspoon of powder. For a 20 kg child, the equivalent is about 0.8 g — a third of a teaspoon.

So, three practical rules:

1. Use a stick rather than powder. Coumarin is only moderately water-soluble, so a stick that is steeped and then thrown away transfers much less of it than powder stirred into the cup and swallowed. One 1-inch stick in two cups, discarded, is a low-exposure way to drink this.
2. If you drink it every day, buy Ceylon cinnamon. At about a hundredth of the coumarin, the daily limit stops being something you need to think about. It costs more and it is worth it for a daily habit.
3. Watch the total, not just the tea. Cinnamon in your morning oats, in a masala chai, in baked things and in a supplement all counts toward the same daily figure.

None of this makes cinnamon dangerous. It is a spice, it has been eaten for centuries, and a cup of stick-brewed tea is nowhere near the limit. It matters when someone takes it every day, takes it as powder, takes it as a supplement, or gives it daily to a child — which is exactly the reader a page like this attracts.

What this tea actually does

Three honest things, in order of how much they matter.

1. It replaces something worse. This is the real benefit and it is not a small one. A cup of masala chai with two teaspoons of sugar is roughly 90 to 120 calories; a soft drink is 150; a café coffee can be 250. A cup of bay leaf and cinnamon tea is 2 to 5. If you drink two of those a day in place of sweetened drinks, that is 200 to 300 calories a day removed without removing any food — more than most “fat-burning” drinks will ever claim honestly. It also satisfies the habit, which is the part that usually breaks a plan.

2. It is warm, aromatic and caffeine-free. Which makes it a good evening drink, and a good after-dinner one. People find it settling after a heavy meal. There is no pharmacology in that — a warm drink with no caffeine is soothing because it is a warm drink with no caffeine — and it is still a genuine reason to make it.

3. Cinnamon and blood sugar: modest, and genuinely mixed. Cinnamon has been studied for its effect on fasting glucose and insulin sensitivity, and the results are inconsistent — some trials show small reductions, others none, and the doses used are usually grams of cinnamon in capsule form rather than what steeps out of a stick into a cup. Treat it as a possible small bonus, not as a reason to drink it, and never as a substitute for diabetes medication or monitoring.

Bay leaf has been studied far less in humans. There is preliminary work on glucose and lipids, and it is not enough to make a claim from. If you enjoy the flavour, that is reason enough.

What it does not do

You will read all of these. None of them holds.

Claim	Reality
“Burns fat” / “for fat loss”	A 2–5 calorie infusion cannot create a meaningful energy deficit. Fat loss comes from eating less than you spend, over months.
“Boosts metabolism”	No food or drink raises resting metabolic rate in a way you would notice.
“Removes toxins” / “detoxes”	Your liver and kidneys clear metabolic waste. Nothing in a cup of tea helps them do it.
“Suppresses appetite”	Warm fluid can briefly take the edge off hunger — any warm drink does. Cinnamon has no appetite-suppressing action.
“High in fibre, so it keeps you full”	The tea is strained. The fibre is in the bin.
“Boosts immunity”	Cinnamon extracts show antimicrobial activity in a laboratory dish. That is not immune support in a person.
“Lowers cholesterol” / “protects the heart” / “prevents neurodegenerative disease”	These are disease-risk claims, and there is no human evidence at the dose in a cup of tea.
“Helps you sleep”	Neither ingredient contains a known sedative compound. A warm caffeine-free drink before bed is a good habit on its own terms.

Why this matters more than it seems. If you drink this expecting it to do the work, you will stop when the scale does not move — and you will have given up something that was genuinely helping, which was the 200 calories a day of sweetened drinks it was replacing.

Who should be careful, and who should ask first

Bay leaf and cinnamon are food, and for most people a cup of this tea is simply a cup of tea. These are the situations where it is worth a conversation.

If you take medication for diabetes. Cinnamon may have a small glucose-lowering effect, which can add to what your medication is already doing. If you take insulin or a sulfonylurea such as glimepiride, gliclazide or glibenclamide, that combination can push blood sugar too low. Mention it to your doctor before making it a daily habit, and check your readings.

If you take an anticoagulant or antiplatelet medicine — warfarin, acenocoumarol, clopidogrel, or regular aspirin. High cinnamon intakes have been associated with effects on clotting. A cup of tea is unlikely to matter; a daily cinnamon supplement is a different question. Ask your doctor or pharmacist.

If you have liver disease, or you take a medicine that affects the liver. This is where the coumarin point above becomes relevant rather than theoretical. Use Ceylon cinnamon, or skip it.

If you are pregnant or breastfeeding. The safety of concentrated cinnamon and bay leaf preparations in pregnancy is not well established. Culinary amounts in food are not the concern; a daily medicinal tea is worth clearing with your doctor.

If you are having cancer treatment, or any treatment with a narrow therapeutic window. Several herbal preparations interact with chemotherapy and other drugs, and your oncologist or clinical pharmacist has your medication list. Ask them rather than a website — this is a question with a real answer and they are the people who can give it.

For children. The coumarin limit scales with body weight, so a child reaches it at a much smaller amount than an adult — roughly 0.8 g of cassia cinnamon for a 20 kg child. An occasional cup is fine; a daily one should be Ceylon, and weak.

If you are allergic to cinnamon or bay — or you get itching, a rash, swelling of the lips or tongue, or breathing difficulty after drinking it — stop and see a doctor.

And if you started drinking this because you are tired all the time, that is worth investigating rather than flavouring. Persistent fatigue in India is most often anaemia — the National Family Health Survey found 57% of women aged 15–49 anaemic — and thyroid disease, vitamin B12 and vitamin D deficiency and diabetes are all common and all testable. Ask your doctor for a blood count, ferritin, TSH, B12, vitamin D and a fasting glucose.

Variations worth making

Each of these keeps the drink under about 10 calories a cup unless you add honey.

• With ginger. A half-inch piece of fresh ginger, crushed, added with the cinnamon. Warming, and the best variation of the set in winter.
• With cardamom. Two green pods, crushed. Changes the character completely and is excellent after a heavy meal.
• With lemon. Off the heat, half a teaspoon. Brightens it, and if you are eating iron-rich food at the same meal, the vitamin C helps iron absorption.
• With tulsi. Four or five fresh leaves, added at the end of the simmer.
• With black pepper. Two or three crushed corns, if you want it sharper.
• Iced. Simmer as usual, cool, refrigerate, serve over ice with a squeeze of lime. Better than it sounds in a Delhi summer.

When to drink it. Whenever you would otherwise have a sweetened drink — that is where the benefit is. After a meal and in the evening are both pleasant, and it has no caffeine, so late is fine.

One cup a day is a habit. Three or four is not better, and with cassia cinnamon it starts to matter. If you want more than a cup or two daily, switch to Ceylon.

Frequently asked questions

How do you make bay leaf and cinnamon tea?

Simmer 2 bay leaves and one 1-inch cinnamon stick in 2 cups of water for 5 minutes, covered, then strain. That is the whole recipe — about 7 minutes start to finish, and 2 to 5 calories a cup. Add lemon or a little honey off the heat if you like.

Can I drink bay leaf and cinnamon tea every day?

Yes, one to two cups, with one condition: use a cinnamon stick rather than powder, and use Ceylon cinnamon if it is a daily habit. Ordinary cassia cinnamon contains coumarin, and EFSA’s daily limit works out at about 2 g of cassia for a 60 kg adult — less than a teaspoon of powder. A stick that is steeped and discarded transfers much less. Ceylon has about a hundredth as much coumarin.

Does bay leaf and cinnamon tea burn belly fat?

No. It contains 2 to 5 calories and no fat-burning mechanism, and you cannot target where fat comes off in any case. What it does genuinely do is replace sweetened drinks — swapping two sugary teas a day for this removes 200 calories or more, which is a real contribution to weight loss. Expect the benefit from the swap, not from the spice.

When is the best time to drink it?

Whenever it replaces something sweeter. After a meal and in the evening are both good; it has no caffeine, so it will not keep you awake. There is no metabolically important time of day.

Is bay leaf tea good for high blood pressure?

There is no good human evidence that it lowers blood pressure, and it should not be used in place of treatment. What does help blood pressure is losing excess weight, moving more, keeping salt under about 5 g a day, sleeping properly, and taking prescribed medication as directed. A low-calorie drink replacing sugary ones supports the first of those.

Can bay leaves reduce cholesterol?

The human evidence is preliminary and not enough to make a claim from. Cholesterol responds to overall diet pattern, fibre intake, weight, activity and — where indicated — medication. Drinking this tea will not change your lipid panel.

Is bay leaf good for your kidneys?

There is no evidence that it benefits kidney function, and it is not a kidney treatment. If you have chronic kidney disease, check any herbal tea with your nephrologist — several herbal preparations are not suitable in kidney impairment, and some affect potassium.

Is it good for diabetes?

Cinnamon has been studied for effects on fasting glucose and insulin sensitivity, with modest and inconsistent results, usually at gram doses in capsules rather than what steeps out of a stick. Bay leaf has much less evidence. Treat any effect as a small bonus, never as a substitute for medication or monitoring — and if you take insulin or a sulfonylurea, tell your doctor before you make it a daily habit, because the effects can add up.

Which cinnamon should I use — stick or powder, cassia or Ceylon?

A stick, and Ceylon if you are drinking it daily. A stick infuses plenty of flavour and is then discarded, which keeps coumarin exposure low. If you only have powder, use no more than ¼ teaspoon for two cups.

Can I eat the bay leaf afterwards?

No. Bay leaves stay rigid and sharp-edged even after simmering and are a choking and gastrointestinal hazard swallowed whole. Strain them out and throw them away.

Can children drink it?

An occasional weak cup, yes. Not daily with cassia cinnamon — the coumarin limit scales with body weight, so a 20 kg child reaches it at roughly 0.8 g, a third of a teaspoon. If a child wants it regularly, use Ceylon and make it weak.

Can I drink it while pregnant?

Culinary amounts of these spices in food are not the concern, but the safety of daily medicinal-strength herbal teas in pregnancy is not well established. Check with your doctor first.

Does adding honey cancel out the benefits?

It adds about 20 calories a teaspoon, taking the cup from roughly 3 calories to 23. That is still a very low-calorie drink. If the honey is what makes you drink this instead of a 120-calorie sweet chai, the honey is winning.

Related: Turmeric and ginger tea recipe · Energy giving foods: the three food groups explained · Indian weight loss diet: 7-day plan and tips

How this article was researched

This recipe and guide are written and edited by Fitelo’s content team. It has not been reviewed by a clinician, and it is general information rather than medical or dietetic advice.

The coumarin figures and the tolerable daily intake come from EFSA and from Germany’s Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR). Energy and nutrient values are calculated for the stated quantities. Where the evidence for a health claim is modest or mixed — cinnamon and blood glucose is the clearest example — we say so rather than reporting the more quotable side, and where there is very little human evidence, as with bay leaf, we say that too.

An earlier version of this article had no ingredient quantities at all, promised fat loss in its heading, described the tea as “high in fiber” four paragraphs after a nutrition table showing under 0.5 g, and stated that its antioxidants “help the body remove toxins, increase metabolism”. It also mentioned coumarin without saying which cinnamon contains it or how much is too much, which is the part that actually matters. All of that has been corrected.

Medical disclaimer

This article is general information and is not a substitute for individual medical or dietetic advice. It has not been reviewed by a doctor or dietitian.

This tea is a food, not a treatment. It does not treat or prevent diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, kidney disease or any other condition, and it should never replace prescribed medication or monitoring.

Speak to a doctor or pharmacist before making this a daily habit if you take medication for diabetes (especially insulin or a sulfonylurea), take an anticoagulant or antiplatelet medicine, have liver disease or chronic kidney disease, are pregnant or breastfeeding, are having cancer treatment, or take any medicine with a narrow therapeutic window.

Do not swallow whole bay leaves. Stop and seek medical advice if you develop itching, rash, swelling or breathing difficulty after drinking it.

If you have been persistently tired, see a doctor rather than a recipe — anaemia, thyroid disease and B12 or vitamin D deficiency are all common in India and all easily tested.