What Teas Are Good for Testosterone?

No single tea has been convincingly shown to raise testosterone in healthy humans based on strong clinical evidence. Most of the research linking tea or herbal infusions to testosterone involves animal models, small pilot studies, or populations with specific hormonal disorders. What makes the question even trickier is that several popular teas do the opposite of what many people expect: they actively lower testosterone. If you are browsing the tea aisle hoping to give your hormones a nudge, the honest picture is more complicated than any supplement brand will tell you.

Teas That Actually Lower Testosterone

Before talking about what might help, it is worth knowing which teas can work against you if your goal is higher testosterone. Spearmint tea is the most well-documented example. A randomized controlled trial in women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) found that drinking spearmint tea twice daily for 30 days significantly reduced both free and total testosterone levels.¹ An earlier trial in women with excess body hair found similar results: free testosterone dropped while other reproductive hormones shifted upward.² These anti-androgenic effects are precisely why spearmint tea is sometimes recommended for women dealing with hormonal acne or unwanted hair growth. For anyone trying to raise testosterone, spearmint is one to skip.

Licorice root tea is another one that moves testosterone in the wrong direction. In a study of healthy women, total serum testosterone dropped from about 28 ng/dL to 19 ng/dL after one month of licorice consumption and fell further to roughly 18 ng/dL after two months. The levels bounced back after the women stopped taking it.³ The suspected mechanism involves blocking enzymes involved in testosterone production. Licorice is a common ingredient in herbal tea blends, so if you drink a lot of “detox” or “throat coat” teas, check the label.

Marjoram tea rounds out the list of teas with anti-androgenic properties. A pilot study in women with PCOS found that marjoram tea improved insulin sensitivity and reduced adrenal androgens.⁴ Again, this is potentially useful for women managing high androgens, but it is not what someone looking to boost testosterone wants to hear.

Green Tea and Black Tea Have a Complicated Relationship with Testosterone

Green tea is probably the most widely consumed “true” tea in discussions about health, and its effects on testosterone are genuinely mixed. On one hand, catechins in green tea, particularly EGCG, can inhibit 5-alpha reductase, the enzyme that converts testosterone into the more potent form called DHT.⁵ That sounds like it would reduce overall androgenic activity. But there is a catch: this inhibition has been demonstrated clearly in cell-free lab assays, not in whole-cell experiments, meaning it may not translate to what happens inside a living body.⁶

On the other hand, some animal research suggests green and black tea could be helpful in specific contexts. In a study using obese male mice on a high-fat diet, both green and black tea supplements significantly increased serum testosterone compared to the high-fat-diet-only group. The teas also improved antioxidant markers in testicular tissue, with black tea actually outperforming green tea.⁷ A separate rat study gave male rats brewed green tea at two different concentrations and found no statistically significant change in testosterone, though there was a dose-dependent upward trend when analyzed across groups.⁸

The takeaway for green and black tea is that the picture depends heavily on context. In obese animals where oxidative stress is damaging reproductive tissue, the antioxidant effects of tea seem to help restore normal testosterone levels. In healthy animals already producing testosterone normally, the effect is minimal or nonexistent. Whether drinking a few cups of green tea a day would meaningfully move the needle for a healthy human man remains unproven.

Herbal Infusions That Show More Promise

Strictly speaking, many of the “teas” people associate with testosterone are not tea at all. They are herbal infusions, tisanes made from roots, leaves, or berries that happen to be steeped in hot water. Some of these have more encouraging data than true tea, though the evidence still comes with caveats.

Ashwagandha is one of the better-studied options. In a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial of aging, overweight men, ashwagandha intake was associated with a roughly 15% greater increase in testosterone compared to placebo. The same group saw an 18% greater increase in DHEA-S, a precursor hormone.⁹ Ashwagandha is widely available as a powder that people stir into hot water or milk, which is how it has been consumed traditionally. The dose used in clinical studies, though, is typically a standardized extract in capsule form, so brewing loose ashwagandha root as a tea might not deliver the same concentration of active compounds.

Fenugreek is another herbal ingredient that shows up in testosterone-support products and can be brewed as a tea from its seeds. In a pilot study of men doing resistance training, a fenugreek glycoside supplement led to a steep increase in free testosterone from baseline over eight weeks, roughly double the increase seen in the placebo group. Total testosterone, however, did not change significantly between the groups.¹⁰ As with ashwagandha, this was a standardized extract, not a cup of fenugreek seed tea. Brewing the seeds at home would yield some of the same compounds, but at an unpredictable dose.

Korean ginseng has a long reputation as a male tonic, and there is some biological plausibility behind it. Research on ginseng berry extract found that it increased levels of enzymes involved in testosterone production, both in cell cultures and in live mice, and that synthetic testosterone levels in the blood of treated mice also rose.¹¹ Ginseng root tea is one of the most widely consumed herbal preparations in East Asia, but the berry extract used in this study is a different part of the plant with a different chemical profile. Whether a standard cup of ginseng root tea delivers the same steroidogenic effects remains unclear.

Passion Flower, Hibiscus, and Other Less Studied Options

Passion flower extract has drawn some preliminary interest for its potential to inhibit aromatase, the enzyme that converts testosterone into estrogen. If aromatase activity is reduced, the thinking goes, more testosterone stays in circulation. But the human data is thin. The most relevant published investigation noted that while rat studies showed increased testosterone after passion flower supplementation, additional research is necessary to confirm any effect in humans.¹² Passion flower tea is easy to find and is mainly consumed as a calming, sleep-promoting drink. Any testosterone benefit would be a secondary discovery, and it is far from established.

Hibiscus tea, the deep red beverage popular in many tropical regions, has some intriguing animal data. A study in diabetic rats found that flavonoid-rich extracts from hibiscus leaves improved reproductive hormone biomarkers, including testosterone, and enhanced the activity of enzymes directly involved in testosterone synthesis.¹³ The context matters here: these were rats with chemically induced diabetes, meaning their testes were under severe oxidative stress. The hibiscus extract appeared to protect and restore function rather than supercharge already normal hormone levels. Whether a cup of hibiscus tea has enough flavonoid concentration to do anything similar in a healthy person is an open question.

Tribulus terrestris, sometimes sold as a tea but more commonly found in capsule form, has long been marketed as a testosterone booster. Animal research has shown that chronic tribulus treatment increases androgen receptor activity in certain brain regions of rats.¹⁴ That is an interesting finding for neuroscience, but increasing receptor sensitivity in one region of the rat brain is not the same as raising circulating testosterone in a human man. Most well-designed human trials of tribulus for testosterone have been disappointing, which is worth knowing before you spend money on tribulus tea blends.

The Flavonoid Connection

A thread running through many of these teas and herbal infusions is flavonoids, a broad class of plant compounds found in everything from green tea to hibiscus to passion flower. A comprehensive review of dietary flavonoids and androgen regulation concluded that flavonoids have the potential to influence testosterone through several pathways: interfering with the hormonal signaling axis between the brain and the gonads, affecting how testosterone is made and broken down, altering how testosterone binds to its receptors, and acting as antioxidants that protect reproductive tissue from damage.¹⁵

This helps explain why the evidence seems paradoxical at first. Some flavonoid-rich teas lower testosterone (spearmint, marjoram) while others appear to raise it (hibiscus, possibly green tea in certain conditions). The direction of the effect depends on which specific flavonoids are present, which enzymes they interact with, and whether the body in question is dealing with hormone excess or deficiency. Flavonoids are not a single lever that pushes testosterone one way. They are a family of hundreds of compounds, each with a different enzymatic profile.

Caffeine, SHBG, and What “Available” Testosterone Means

There is another angle to consider beyond total testosterone production: how much of the testosterone in your blood is actually available for your body to use. A protein called sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) latches onto testosterone and essentially takes it out of circulation. Higher SHBG means less free testosterone, even if total testosterone stays the same.

A study in premenopausal Japanese women found that higher intakes of caffeinated coffee, green tea, and total caffeine were all correlated with higher SHBG levels.¹⁶ The correlations were modest, but the implication is worth flagging: if you are drinking a lot of caffeinated tea, you might be slightly raising your SHBG, which could mean less of your testosterone is biologically active. This was an observational study in women and may not apply directly to men, but it adds a layer of nuance to the question of whether green tea helps or hurts testosterone. Even if green tea does not change your total testosterone level, it could subtly affect how much of that testosterone is free to do its job.

Why Brewing Method Matters More Than You Think

If any of these teas do have hormonal effects, how you brew them changes how much of the active compounds end up in your cup. Research on white and green teas found that the maximum extraction of antioxidant compounds occurred either with cold water steeped for two hours or with hot water at around 90°C (194°F). For teas made from whole, large leaves, cold steeping actually pulled out more beneficial compounds than hot water.¹⁷ Separate research confirmed that brewing time and temperature significantly affect the total polyphenol content of tea, meaning a weakly brewed cup and a strongly brewed cup are not just different in flavor but could be delivering very different amounts of bioactive compounds.¹⁸

This is particularly relevant for herbal infusions like ashwagandha or fenugreek, where the bioactive compounds may not dissolve as easily as the polyphenols in green tea leaves. A quick five-minute steep of fenugreek seeds is unlikely to extract the same level of glycosides used in clinical trials. If you are serious about getting a meaningful dose of any herbal compound, the concentrated extract form is generally going to be more reliable than a home-brewed tea.

The Gap Between Animal Studies and Your Morning Cup

Most of the promising findings linking teas to higher testosterone come from rodent studies, and the gap between a mouse study and a human outcome is enormous. Researchers typically give animals doses that, when scaled by body weight, far exceed what a person would get from drinking tea. They often use concentrated extracts injected or gavaged directly, bypassing the mouth entirely. And rodent hormone systems, while similar enough to humans to be useful for screening, do not predict human outcomes with any precision.

The studies that do exist in humans tend to be small, short-term, and conducted in very specific populations: women with PCOS, aging overweight men, young men doing resistance training. None of these results can be confidently extended to, say, a healthy 35-year-old man wondering if green tea will optimize his hormones. That does not mean the findings are useless. It means the current evidence is best understood as a set of interesting signals rather than a reliable recipe.

For anyone determined to try a tea-based approach, the most reasonable options based on what limited evidence exists are ashwagandha and fenugreek, both of which have at least some human trial data in men showing increased testosterone (even if the trials were small). Green and black tea are unlikely to hurt and may provide antioxidant protection for reproductive tissue, especially in the context of metabolic stress. And if nothing else, avoiding spearmint, licorice, and marjoram in large quantities removes three teas that could actively work against the goal. The rest is a matter of watching the science develop, because right now it is still very much developing.