Several common drinks can temporarily increase your metabolic rate, with water, coffee, and green tea having the strongest research behind them. The effects are real but modest. Even the most potent options add roughly 50 to 100 extra calories burned per day, so no single beverage will transform your metabolism on its own. That said, the cumulative effect of choosing these drinks consistently can make a meaningful difference over time.
Water: The Simplest Metabolism Booster
Plain water is the most underrated option on this list. Drinking about 500 ml (roughly 17 ounces) increases your resting metabolic rate by 30%, an effect that kicks in within 10 minutes and peaks around 30 to 40 minutes later. Your body expends energy warming the water to body temperature and processing the fluid shift, which adds up across several glasses a day.
The practical takeaway: drinking enough water throughout the day keeps this mild thermogenic effect going in repeated waves. It won’t burn hundreds of extra calories, but dehydration actively slows metabolism, so staying well-hydrated removes a drag on your energy expenditure that many people don’t realize they have.
Coffee and Caffeine
Coffee is probably the drink most people associate with a metabolic kick, and the data backs it up. A 100 mg dose of caffeine, roughly what you’d get in a small cup of brewed coffee, raises resting metabolic rate by 3 to 4% for about two and a half hours. When researchers gave subjects repeated 100 mg doses every two hours across a 12-hour day, total energy expenditure rose by 8 to 11% during that period. That’s a significant bump, though the effect didn’t carry over into the nighttime hours.
The boost comes from caffeine stimulating your nervous system and increasing the rate at which your body breaks down stored fuel. Black coffee delivers this benefit with essentially zero calories. Adding sugar, cream, or flavored syrups can easily outweigh the extra calories burned, so how you prepare your coffee matters as much as the coffee itself.
The FDA considers up to 400 mg of caffeine per day safe for most adults, which works out to about two to three standard cups of coffee. Beyond that threshold, you’re more likely to experience a racing heart, anxiety, disrupted sleep, and stomach issues. And poor sleep itself lowers your metabolic rate the next day, so overdoing caffeine can backfire.
Green Tea and Its Unique Edge
Green tea contains caffeine, but it also has a group of plant compounds called catechins that give it a metabolic advantage beyond caffeine alone. In controlled studies, green tea extract raised 24-hour energy expenditure by 4% compared to a placebo. When researchers isolated the caffeine effect, green tea still burned 2.8% more energy than caffeine by itself. That gap comes from the catechins working alongside caffeine to increase fat breakdown.
Over longer periods, the effect compounds. In one study, resting metabolic rate was about 89 extra calories per day higher after eight weeks of supplementation with green tea catechins. A separate trial using capsules containing 375 mg of green tea catechins found energy expenditure increased by roughly 80 calories a day. For context, 80 to 90 extra calories daily translates to about 8 to 9 pounds over the course of a year, assuming everything else stays equal.
You’d need to drink about three to four cups of brewed green tea daily to approach the catechin levels used in most studies. Matcha, which uses the whole ground leaf, delivers higher concentrations per cup than standard steeped green tea.
Oolong Tea and Fat Burning
Oolong tea sits between green and black tea in terms of oxidation, and it has its own interesting metabolic profile. In a study of male volunteers, drinking oolong tea increased energy expenditure by about 2.9% compared to plain water, translating to roughly 67 extra calories per day. More notably, fat oxidation (the rate at which your body uses fat for fuel) jumped by 12% with oolong compared to water.
That fat-burning shift is what makes oolong stand out. While the total calorie increase is similar to coffee or green tea, the proportion of those calories coming from fat stores was higher. If you enjoy the taste, oolong is a solid alternative to green tea with overlapping but slightly different benefits.
Ginger Tea
Ginger tea increases what’s known as diet-induced thermogenesis, the energy your body uses to digest and process a meal. In a randomized crossover trial, drinking a cup of ginger infusion alongside a meal boosted post-meal energy expenditure by about 43 to 95 extra calories over the following four hours, depending on the study and the ginger concentration used. The active compounds, gingerol and shogaol, appear to generate heat in the body and increase calorie burn during digestion.
Ginger tea pairs well with meals for this reason. You can make it by steeping fresh sliced ginger root in hot water for 5 to 10 minutes. Powdered ginger works too, though fresh ginger tends to have a higher concentration of the thermogenic compounds.
Protein Shakes and the Thermic Effect
Protein shakes aren’t a traditional “metabolism drink,” but they deserve a spot on this list because protein has the highest thermic cost of any nutrient. Your body burns 20 to 30% of the calories in protein just to digest and absorb it. By comparison, carbohydrates cost 5 to 10%, and fats cost essentially nothing at 0 to 3%.
So if you drink a protein shake with 30 grams of protein (about 120 calories), your body uses 24 to 36 of those calories just processing it. A carbohydrate-heavy smoothie with the same calorie count would cost only 6 to 12 calories to digest. Over the course of a day, replacing some carbohydrate-heavy drinks with protein-rich ones can meaningfully shift how many net calories your body absorbs.
What About Apple Cider Vinegar?
Apple cider vinegar is widely promoted as a metabolism booster, but the evidence tells a different story. Its main active component, acetic acid, doesn’t appear to increase metabolic rate directly. Instead, it slows gastric emptying (how fast food leaves your stomach) and increases feelings of fullness. That can lead to eating less at subsequent meals, which may produce weight loss over time, but through a different mechanism than true metabolic boosting.
If you enjoy diluted apple cider vinegar before meals, it’s unlikely to cause harm and may help with appetite control. Just don’t expect it to burn extra calories the way coffee or green tea does.
Putting It All Together
The most realistic strategy is combining several of these drinks across your day rather than relying on any single one. A morning coffee, a couple of cups of green tea in the afternoon, water throughout the day, and ginger tea with a meal could collectively add 100 to 200 extra calories in daily expenditure. That’s roughly the equivalent of a 15 to 20 minute brisk walk, earned passively through your beverage choices.
Keep in mind that your body can adapt to habitual caffeine intake, which blunts the metabolic effect over time. Cycling your caffeine consumption (taking occasional breaks) can help maintain sensitivity. Also, all the caffeinated drinks on this list contribute to your daily total, so track your intake across coffee, green tea, and oolong to stay within a comfortable range. Most people notice diminishing returns and increasing side effects above 400 mg of caffeine per day.
These drinks work best as part of a larger picture that includes adequate protein intake, regular movement, and enough sleep. No beverage can overcome a large caloric surplus, but chosen wisely, what you drink can give your metabolism a consistent, small push in the right direction.