Health Benefits of Green Tea

I've been sick all week, so I figured I'd do a post about the health benefits of tea!   This is from the September 2004 edition of the Harvard Women's Health Watch.

Benefit of drinking green tea: The proof is in -- drinking tea is healthy, says Harvard Women’s Health Watch

SEPTEMBER 2004

Although tea drinking has been associated with health benefits for centuries, only in recent years have its medicinal properties been investigated scientifically. The October issue of Harvard Women's Health Watchrecognizes the healthy power of tea while helping readers get the most out of their cups.

Tea's health benefits are largely due to its high content of flavonoids — plant-derived compounds that are antioxidants. Green tea is the best food source of a group called catechins. In test tubes, catechins are more powerful than vitamins C and E in halting oxidative damage to cells and appear to have other disease-fighting properties. Studies have found an association between consuming green tea and a reduced risk for several cancers, including, skin, breast, lung, colon, esophageal, and bladder.

Additional benefits for regular consumers of green and black teas include a reduced risk for heart disease. The antioxidants in green, black, and oolong teas can help block the oxidation of LDL (bad) cholesterol, increase HDL (good) cholesterol and improve artery function. A Chinese study published recently in the Archives of Internal Medicine showed a 46%-65% reduction in hypertension risk in regular consumers of oolong or green tea, compared to non-consumers of tea.

The October issue provides a few tips to get the most out of tea-drinking:

Drinking a cup of tea a few times a day to absorb antioxidants and other healthful plant compounds. In green-tea drinking cultures, the usual amount is three cups per day. Allow tea to steep for three to five minutes to bring out its catechins. The best way to get the catechins and other flavonoids in tea is to drink it freshly brewed. Decaffeinated, bottled ready-to-drink tea preparations, and instant teas have less of these compounds. Tea can impede the absorption of iron from fruits and vegetables. Adding lemon or milk or drinking tea between meals will counteract this problem.

Here is the link to the original article!

http://www.health.harvard.edu/press_releases/benefit_of_drinking_green_tea

It was really great to hear from my readers about their tea preferences.  It seemed like all of you loved tea because it is a healthier alternative to coffee or soda for caffeine, or just a healthy option for a delicious drink in general.
One person commented asking me if I knew of any fruit teas to recommend to her.  I'm not a huge fruit tea fan so I said I'd look up some things and post them here, so here they are!

Even though I'm not a big fruit tea drinker, this is one of my favorite teas.  It has a really nice flavor and isn't overpowering if you like pomegranate.

I found this one online and it might be a good place to start.  There's five different types of fruit teas included so you can figure out which ones you like!

Blooming flower tea is made up of tea leaves all wrapped up in a special way so that when it steeps it opens up and appears to bloom a flower.  I'm really looking forward to trying one of these!

I want to hear from you!

This blog is mostly my writing and posts I put together, but this time I want to hear from my readers!  So out of curiosity, how many of you wonderful readers out there actually drink tea on a daily basis?  If you do, what is your favorite kind and how do you take it?  Hot/iced/black/green/mixed with sugar/lemon, i'll hear it all!
Leave a comment and let me know what you guys are into, and i'll try to post more things that are relevant to that.

I don't drink coffee in the mornings, I drink this.  It has a very strong and robust flavor and really is a good tea to wake up with if you're feeling a little slow in the morning, like I am today.

Tea Related Gadgets!

Cool Products for Tea Lovers

This article has some of the most awesome tea related gadgets I've ever seen.  I particularly like the 'Sharky Tea Infuser' and the submarine tea ball.  I don't use loose leaf tea only for the reason that I do not have a tea ball, so maybe I'll hunt one of these down!

What I'm drinking today.  Last semester I was drinking four travel mugs of green tea a day, my friends teased me for always having my travel mug glued to my hand.

Four Basic Types of Tea

Hello all!  I figured the best way to kick off my tea blog would be a brief little rundown on the most basic  types of teas that are out there.  All tea comes from the Camellia Sinensis plant, a shrub that's native to China and India.  

• Black Tea is one of the most commonly known and drank type of tea.  It the more fermented and oxidized than the other types of tea and because of this has the highest caffeine content out of all the different types of teas, with about 20% the caffeine of a cup of coffee.  Black tea is stronger in flavor than less oxidized teas.

• Green Tea is also one of the most popular types of tea.  As opposed to black tea, green tea is heat-treated and steamed to stop fermentation.  Green tea has only 5-10% of the caffeine in a cup of coffee and has been proven to have a wide range of health benefits.  

• White Tea is totally uncured and unfermented, and is the purest and least processed of all the types of teas.  

• Oolong Tea is is semi-fermented, which gives it about 15% of the caffeine of coffee.  The taste of oolong ranges widely among the different subvarieties, but most people recognize oolong tea as 'Chinese Tea' that is served in Chinese restaurants.  

My personal favorite is black tea, with green tea coming up as a very close second, but I cannot say I have had much oolong tea or white tea to compare sufficiently.  Right now I've been drinking a lot of mint green tea and darjeeling tea.  In my next post I'll go into detail about some of my favorite blends of tea, and with that good night everyone, have a happy monday!

Hello everybody!  I'm Jennifer, and I love tea and everything about it.  In this blog I'll be sharing my love of tea with the internet.  I'll be posting about different kinds of tea, the best ways to brew different kinds of tea, and random fun facts about tea too!  I hope if you already love tea you'll stick around and read some more, and if you don't know anything about tea you'll learn something new!