Loaded Tea Recipe: How To Make Loaded Tea Without Herbalife

Loaded tea is a popular tea-based drink. Thanks to clever marketing, the drink is closely associated with the Herbalife brand of nutritional supplements. Interestingly, Herbalife doesn’t own any copyright relating to “loaded tea.”

It is possible to make loaded tea without using any Herbalife products. Loaded tea is simply a drink made of nutritional supplements and caffeine. It shares most of its ingredients with sugar-free energy drinks, and the ingredients are widely accessible.

The idea of an off-brand version of the “real thing” may sound unappealing. However, there is absolutely nothing that distinguishes Herbalife products from other quality brands. So, let’s take a closer look at loaded tea, its ingredients, and a recipe you can use to make your own.

Why Use Alternatives to Herbalife?

Before we consider how you can make your loaded tea without Herbalife products, let’s investigate why one might do so. A couple of things may put one off of the brand.

Save Money

The simplest reason that one may decide to look for alternative ingredients is the price. Herbalife is a lifestyle brand. The way they operate requires large profit margins to sustain the resellers. 

Because of that, one can expect to save money by purchasing alternative ingredients similar to those in Herbalife-loaded tea recipes. There are additional opportunities to save money by buying said ingredients in bulk.

A Dodgy Business Model

In 2016 Herbalife had to pay two hundred million USD to settle an FTC suit. The reason? They use a scammy MLM business model. Most of the company’s distributors were assured they would make good money by selling Herbalife products.

The FTC stated, “Half of Herbalife’ Sales Leaders’ earned on average less than $5 a month from product sales.”

Herbalife had been incredibly misleading in its sales pitch to independent distributors. These are deeply unethical practices, and it begs the question: Are Herbalife products authentic, quality supplements? 

Knowing that a health supplement brand is keen to exploit for profits is concerning. Where else do they lie and cheat to make more money in their business? There is speculation that loaded teas get sold in “health club“ stores to hide the MLM distribution model from the public.

How to Make a Loaded Tea at Home

Tea on a Glass Cup

The following is a basic recipe for loaded tea. You can experiment with various flavors and ingredients to make new loaded tea drinks.

What are the Ingredients in a Loaded Tea?

First, you need to procure all the necessary ingredients. You may think it will be daunting, but the necessities are easy to buy online. The list consists of the following:

Tea Powder

The key ingredient in loaded tea is diet tea powder (on Amazon). You can substitute Herbalife’s “tea concentrate” with regular tea powder. The powder may contain different ingredients than your tea powder, but the final product’s taste isn’t noticeably different.

An additional benefit to using alternatives to Herbalife’s tea concentrate is you can choose your preferred kind of tea. Furthermore, the many additives in tea concentrate are only somewhat beneficial as nutrients go. 

Energy Drink Mix

Many people may rethink the prospect of loaded teas when they learn that Herbalife Liftoff is a combination of the same ingredient found in energy drinks. You can easily replace it with an energy drink mix.

In truth, energy drinks aren’t all that bad. They contain essential nutrients that are challenging to include in a regular diet—two ingredients responsible for most energy drinks’ negative image: sugar and caffeine. 

Loaded tea contains little sugar but more caffeine than most popular energy drink brands. The pros and cons of either are debatable. 

Nutritional Supplements 

Loaded teas are not only “loaded” with caffeine but also meant to contain large quantities of essential nutrients (on Amazon). Therefore, you will need a couple of over-the-counter nutritional supplements.

Finding the right mix can be a challenge. Some nutritional supplements have an awful taste that can ruin your loaded tea. The best advice is to try a few different supplements and find one with the least impact on the flavor of your drink. For example, powdered supplements or non-coated tablets work well. 

Keep in mind that Herbalife loaded tea does taste of vitamins. 

Optional Ingredients

One of the best parts of making your own loaded tea is you can get creative. There are many recipes online; you can substitute the Herbalife components with the recipe below. You can also make brand-new loaded teas. 

  • Aloe water or mix
  • Flavored soda syrups
  • Food coloring
  • Chopped or whole fruits

Recipe:

Because every alternative recipe uses its own ingredients, no one recipe fits all. However, the basics are as follows:

  1. Choose a volume of loaded tea that you want to make.
  1. Find an appropriately sized container to create your desired volume of loaded tea.
  1. Fill with water to your measurement.
  1. The powdered tea mix will have a recommended measure, usually per 8 fluid Oz.
  1. Divide the total volume of loaded tea you are aiming for by eight.
  1. Add the calculated amount of servings to your selected volume of water (If you want to make 24 fluid Oz, you divide twenty-four by eight. The answer is three, so you add three recommended powder tea measures to your mix).
  1. Do the same calculation for your nutritional supplements.
  1. If you are making 24 fluid Oz, you must add three doses of your chosen supplement.
  1. Repeat the process once more for your energy drink mix.
  1. Add your preference of whole or crushed ice. 

Optional Steps:

Now is the best point to add additional ingredients like flavoring or fruit. If you want to produce different colored layers, do the following:

  1. First, fill the glass partway with your loaded tea mix and ice.
  1. Next, add a soda flavor or food colorant of your choice.
  1. Then, carefully add more loaded tea mix, and repeat.

Is a Loaded Tea Healthy?

Glasses with drops of sweet peach iced tea

Loaded tea contains too much caffeine to be particularly healthy. The many added nutrients are a significant boost, but it is more like drinking an extra strong, sugar-free energy drink.

How Much Does it Cost to Make Loaded Tea?

Herbalife tea is exploitatively costly when you consider the ingredients. For example, even buying only the Herbalife base energy drink ingredient, Liftoff, will set you back 21 dollars for a ten-pack. 

You could get your hands on all the loaded tea ingredients online for between $30 and $40. Naturally, the exact cost will vary depending on which products you purchase.

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