Tea and Health
If you are cold, tea will warm you. If you are too heated, it will cool you. If you are depressed, it will cheer you. If you are excited, it will calm you. [William Gladstone, 1865]
Good news: Tea is good for you. You should be sipping your favourite Earl Grey with a clear conscience. Yes, black tea too (not just green tea).

More good news: The average cup of tea contains at least half the level of caffeine than coffee.

Even more good news: Contrary to popular belief, quality green tea doesn't actually taste like stewed seaweed. As long as you use eteaket's quality leaves and don't pour boiling water over them.

The main benefits of drinking green tea that have already been confirmed by scientists include a lower rate of cancer, lower cholesterol, general immune health and better breath. We will be expanding on these issues and more over time.

Ideally we should be drinking about 4 cups of tea a day for optimum health benefits. Here's a brief run-down of some other health benefits.

  • Hydration
    Tea is an important source of fluids and helps to keep your body hydrated. Even the Food Standards Agency and the British Diabetic Association agree. Around 40% of Britain's fluid intake today will be tea. Experts now understand that caffeine levels at a normal level of tea intake are too low to be diuretic. In any event, regular tea drinkers become immune to its effect. We find drinking tea all day is a much more enjoyable way of staying hydrated than trying to drink 2 litres of plain water a day.
  • Weight-loss
    Tea without milk has no calories. Using semi-skimmed milk adds around 13 calories per cup, but you also benefit from valuable minerals and calcium. A Swiss study on green tea found that the caffeine interacts with the flavonoids and appears to speed up calorie burning, including fat calorie burning (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Nov 1999).
  • Caffeine
    The average cup of tea contains less than half the caffeine of an average cup of coffee. Preliminary research has shown that when the level of caffeine in tea and coffee is identical, alertness across the day may be more consistent in the tea drinkers. Scientists now believe that theanine (see below), in combination with caffeine, may well be responsible for the positive effect of tea on alertness. No adverse effects of tea drinking on hydration or iron status have been found at normal levels of consumption.
  • Good for teeth
    Tea is a natural source of fluoride and drinking three to four cups makes a significant contribution to your daily fluoride intake. Only 11% of UK water supply has fluoride added. Regular intake of fluoride can contribute to dental health in both adults and children and help protect teeth and gums.
  • Antioxidants
    Tea is a natural source of flavonoids that generate antioxidant activity and may help protect the body's cells against damage, assist with arterial function and protect your body against the damaging effects of free radicals. Tea is the biggest source of flavonoid antioxidants in the UK diet. Other sources include apples and onions.
  • Theanine
    Theanine is a non-protein amino acid that is rare in nature, but found naturally in black and green tea where it is thought to be a flavorous constituent of tea leaves. Tea drinkers have long believed their cup of tea has unique properties (relaxing and reviving) and early research on theanine is starting to help us understand why tea is so different from other hot beverages. Drinking tea has been shown to have positive effects on maintaining daytime alertness and has a unique and positive effect on mood.
To date, studies have mainly concentrated on green tea rather than all tea types. As more studies emerge, we are now starting to see evidence emerging that all teas' benefits are essentially similar. This makes sense when you think about it as all tea comes from the same plant (Camellia Sinensis).

There are always going to be some disparity between different types of tea because of the differences in processing but these differences are unlikely to be considerable. For example, the catechins in green tea are absorbed higher up in the gut than the more complex polyphenols of black tea. From the vast amounts of health studies available, it seems that green tea is more likely to protect our cardiovascular system and black tea it more likely to offer protection against cancer. Both are clearly highly beneficial.

Like fruit and vegetables and other nutritional foods, the positive contribution that tea provides to our diet must be seen in the context of a general healthy lifestyle.