Chlorella tea

"Chlorella tea" is usually chlorella powder stirred or dissolved into hot water, not a leaf steeped like a conventional herbal tea — chlorella is a single-celled algae, not a leaf, so there's nothing to strain out a plant material from. Whether a cup delivers a meaningful amount of what's inside the algae depends on whether the powder's cell wall was already processed before it went into the jar, which is the same question that matters for tablets and capsules.

How it's actually made

Commercial "chlorella tea" is typically pre-processed chlorella powder (the same broken-cell-wall powder used in tablets) mixed into hot or warm water, sometimes with the powder settling at the bottom rather than dissolving clear the way a leaf tea does. It's a different product from a true infusion, where you'd steep and then strain out plant material — there's no chlorella "leaf" to strain out, so drinking chlorella tea usually means drinking the suspended powder itself, sediment included.

What the cell wall means for a cup made this way

Chlorella's natural cell wall is thick and largely resists human digestion when left intact, which is why almost all commercial chlorella — tea powder included — is sold pre-processed as "broken" or "cracked" cell wall material. A lab study combining a digestion model with human intestinal cells found that about 75% of the lutein in untreated Chlorella vulgaris stayed trapped in the indigestible portion rather than becoming available for absorption, and that mechanically disrupting the cell wall made the lutein up to three times more available in that model. That's one nutrient, tested in a lab model, not a human trial of chlorella tea specifically — but it's the reason a tea made from unprocessed chlorella powder would be working against the same absorption barrier that processed tablets and capsules are built to get around. If a chlorella tea product's powder has already gone through that processing, hot water shouldn't undo it; if the label doesn't say, there's no way to know.

Is chlorella tea good for you?

No trial has tested chlorella tea, or drinking chlorella powder in hot water, as its own beverage format, so this page can't attach a specific benefit to a cup of it. See chlorella benefits: what the research does and doesn't show for what's actually been tested — tablets, capsules and powder taken directly, at 1,500 mg to 6 g a day, not a diluted hot-water drink.

Questions people ask

How do you make chlorella tea?

Stir chlorella powder into hot or warm water; there's no leaf to steep and strain, since chlorella is a single-celled algae rather than a plant. Some products settle rather than fully dissolve, which is normal for this ingredient.

What are the benefits of chlorella tea?

No trial has tested chlorella tea specifically. See chlorella benefits: what the research does and doesn't show for what's been tested in other forms, at what dose.

Is chlorella powder the same as chlorella tea?

Functionally, yes — a "tea" made from chlorella is the same powder used in other formats, mixed into water rather than a capsule. See how to choose a good chlorella for what to check on the label regardless of format.

Related reading: what is chlorella, how much chlorella should you take a day, and chlorella gummies.