Tea = Water?

I only count water as water, but lots of people count tea as long as it is caffeine free.

I make decaf iced tea with very little sugar and count it toward my water. It is, after all, water, with some flavoring...

I count as the same volume of water, because that's essentially what it is with some flavoring. Any difference in hydration would be too minimal to quantify. 8 glasses of straight up water in addition to other drinks is probably more than you need, considering that even things like milk and pop are water based and will still hydrate you (although in a more caloric way).

I Read an article in the paper a few days ago, saying tea, coffee, squash basically anything you add water too can be classed as water. obviously better to drink just plain water but cant see it hurting really x

The reason you can't count tea or coffee is because it is caffeniated and caffeine has the opposite effect as water does. Caffeine dehydrates you. I know because one summer all I did was drink iced tea and I had bad kidney problems. My doctor told me that tea is worse than coffee because of the amount of caffeine and the dehyration it causes.

That is correct there is decaffeinated tea and that would be okay to count toward your water intake.