Wonders of Tea

Rooibos has been a popular drink in South Africa since the early 1900’s and started to gain popularity in the US and UK for its health benefits. Whether its deserving of the reputation for being an ‘elixir of life’ is what I’m going to find out!

Rooibos is Afrikaans for “red bush” which is the name it often goes by in the US and UK such as…. It bears no relation to the Camellia Sinensis plant responsible for our beloved green and black teas.

Rooibos does contain high levels of antioxidants such as aspalathin and nothofagin which aren’t found in traditional Camellia Sinensis and with lower caffeine content and tanins it has fewer side effects common in very high levels of tea intake. Although its worth noting tea has quite low level of caffeine anyway and few people suffer caffeine related side effects from tea unless sensitive.

I did note in a previous post on which tea is healthiest that Rooibos contains just 60-80mg of antioxidants per cup compared to the whopping 300-450mg available in green tea. Even black tea that has gone through a heavy oxidation process has more than rooibos with 130-200mg per cup.

Although it has to be said that amount of antioxidants isn’t the only indicator of the health benefits of rooibos. With its lower caffeine and tannin content it can be a useful alternative to those suffering from caffeine sensitivity.

Rooibos tea also happens to be a nice tea to drink for its own sake! I won’t switch to it as my ‘tea’ of choice any time soon but its certainly one I now keep in my cupboards whenever wanting the occassional nutty and sweat red bush.

My Top 3 Rooibos Teas

1. 
   Tazo Tea African Red Bush
2. 
   Teavana Blueberry Infused Rooibos Tea
3. 
   Loose Leaf Adagio Rooibos

facts, health health, rooibos

Its a common question among caffeine addicts and general caffeine drinkers:

How much caffeine is in X

Well – Jasmine tea is no exception and you’ll be happy (maybe sad – I dunno!) to know that ots similar to that of green tea. Jasmine tea contains very little caffeine of note and averages:

5-20mg per cup

facts, health health, jasmine

I was going to do a post for two of these until I kept coming across more and more and realised it’d be easier to compile a list of teas recent health claims.

1. Tea Reduces Risk of Stroke – More specifically ischemic stroke and just 1-2 cups per day of green or oolong tea can have a beneit. Read more.
2. Tea Fights AIDS – The antioxidant EGCG has been found to hinder the ability for the AIDS virus to infect individuals. Read more.
3. Green Tea Fights Incurable Leukemia – Another win for the EGCG compound found in tea and this time shown to shrink lymph nodes and reduce white cell counts in leukemia patients. Read more.
4. Green Tea Weakens Lung Cancer Cells – Studies are starting into the potential use of green tea to weaken cancer cells in the lungs making them more susceptible to treatment. Read more.
5. 3 Cups of Tea Cut Heart Attack Risk – This is old news but a new story so it makes the list. Read more.

health health

With Pu Erh tea spending anything from days to years underground you’d expect this fermentation process to produce some health benefit. We having brought together scientific papers, research and advice I find out the truth.

What did I find?

Pu erh tea has been drunk in china as a tonic for digestion. Far more so than any other tea. In traditional Chinese medicine it is believed to have high levels of Qi (chi) which helps to flush the body of toxins.

Yunnan Natural Medicine Research Institute in China found it to have a significant impact against cancer cells of the throat and mouth.

In another cancer study they found a side effect of the consumption of pu erh caused a reduction in weight, lowered cholesteral and lower triacylglycerol levels.

Pretty good and it makes a dam nice cup of tea too.

My recommendations…

A great tea brick called
Horse Pu-erh (2002)
is available from Mighty Leaf Tea.

health health, pu erh

Well as per the results of the voting here’s a healthy tea post. It looks like a recent study has shown that women who drink at least 3 cups of tea per day cut their breast cancer risk by a third.

Read more about this US study.

health health

Due to the roaring success of my previous post detailing the safety of tea during pregnancy I decided to handle another variety today.

So how safe is hibiscus tea when you’re expecting?

Well its not someone you should do in the first three months as it can have an impact on hormone levels and it has been shown to cause a decrease in male fertility.  After 3 months moderate drinking of hibiscus flower tea should be perfectly safe.

Hibiscus Flower Tea is available from Now Foods.

health health, hibiscus

Well its not exactly an easy question to answer due to the huge variety of teas out there and how exactly you want to measure health benefits.

If we say the health score of a tea is based on its levels of antioxidants (flavinoids, catechins) then we could draw up the following table…

Pos	Antioxidants	Tea
1	400-600mg	White Tea
2	300-400mg	Jasmine Tea[1]
3	300-450mg	Green Tea
4	130-200mg	Black Tea
5	60-80mg	Rooibos ‘Tea’[2]
6	? (low)	Instant Tea
7	20-110mg	Iced tea[3]

[1] Jasmine tea’s base is green tea and its total antioxidant content is boosted by the presence of jasmine.
[2] Although Rooibos isn’t of the same species and not strictly a tea it is commonly reffered to as a tea. Now although many have claimed it has a higher antioxidant content than tea this isn’t true although it does contain a variety of unique antioxidants.
[3] The general consensus is that iced tea is the most heavily processed and thus least antioxidant rich of the teas. However, Lipton do claim that their tea with lemon contains an unusually high amount of flavinoids. How much we believe this is up to you.

(Hakim IA, Hartz V, Harris RB, Balentine D, Weisgerber UM, Graver E, Whitacre R, Alberts D. Reproducibility and relative validity of a questionnaire to assess intake of black tea polyphenols in epidemiological studies. Cancer Epidem Bio & Prev 2001; 10:667-78).

Antioxidant Activity of Black Tea vs. Green Tea (Ki Won Lee and Hyong Joo Lee) Department of Food Science and Technology School of Agricultural Biotechnology Seoul National University Suwon 441–744, Korea

health black tea, green tea, health, iced tea, science, white tea

It seems a new study has been done and this time into the health benefits of Hibiscus tea.  Now I’ll be honest and say I’ve never tried Hibiscus tea.  If you’re like me then here’s the summary on hibiscus:

• Also known as Rosemallow.
• Its related to cocoa, cotton and okra plants.
• Often grown for its beautiful flowers.
• White Hibiscus is an important plant in Avuryeda.
• It is the national flower of South Korea and Malaysia.

So its not that suprising its got health benefits as the Inidians have been using it in their Avuryeda practices for thousands of years.

Drinking hibiscus tea lowered blood pressure in a group of pre-hypertensive and mildly hypertensive adults, according to a report being presented today by nutrition scientist Diane McKay at the American Heart Association’s annual conference

The volunteers involved in the study drank three cups daily for about 6 weeks and their blood pressure and other vital statistics were monitored.

The numbers are very promising with people losing several points off their blood pressure over the course of the study.

To get yourself a quality hibiscus tea I’d recommend Hibiscus Punch Herb Tea

You can read more here.

health health, herbal tea, hibiscus

Halloween has passed and we’re into the depths of a cold, cold winter.  Tea is great at keeping you warm but if you happen to get a cold then a nice herbal tea blend by Throat Coat could be the answer.

Containing althea root and slippery elm bark coat your damaged membrane of the throat with a protective barrier helping to soothe and heal.  Throat Coat tea also contains licorice root, which has been used for centuries to enhance throat and respiratory health. Throat Coat Tea is naturally sweet and smooth to taste making it an easy tea to drink when you’re under the weather.

So if any of you get ill give it a go: 16 Throat Coat Tea Bags @ Kalyx.com

health health

With tea being a source of caffeine its often asked whether its safe to drink tea in pregnancy.  Although the levels of caffeine in tea are much lower than in coffee (half in some cases) the delicate balance required for a babies safe development can all to easily be interrupted.  Never one to shy away from answering a question I decided to do some homework and here’s the facts…

Although previously it was seen as preferable to cut caffeine entirely this was only due to a lack of studies and so scientists erred on the side of caution.  However, there’s increasing evidence that moderate caffeine intake is safe for your developing baby.

Moderate caffeine intake is about 6 cups of black tea per day.

However, It’s often difficult to get an accurate handle on how much caffeine is in each cup of tea or coffee so the above may not be 100%.  If you want to be completely safe then there’s a variety of other paths to take…

Green tea contains much less caffeine than black tea and so you’ll be safe drinking more.  The average amounts of caffeine in various teas is:

• US Tea (black): 40mg
• Imported Tea (black): 60mg
• Green Tea: 15mg

So unless you have a severe addiction to green tea and can go through 10 cups per sitting – you should be completely safe drinking green tea during pregnancy.  In fact it could be beneficial to your baby with a selection of powerful antioxidants.

Alternatives

Decaffeinate

When it comes to tea I’d recommend decaffeinating it yourself rather than getting the decaffeinated variety as they use powerful solvents to ‘wash’ the leaves of the caffeine and although no health risks have been associated with this I think its safe to say that washing with water is much better.

So to get caffeine out of your tea simply steep the tea in warm water for 30 seconds before making your proper cup of tea with it.  Caffeine ‘leeches’ out quicker than the flavour so this is a good way to DIY decaffeinate your tea during pregnancy.

Herbal

You could also go down the herbal tea route.  Before dismisisng this because none of the varieties are your beloved tea I’d give them a try because I’ve often found a huge variety of nice fruity teas this way.  It opens whole new avenues for you.

Bad Herbs

What you don’t want to do is replace your tea during pregnancy with a much worse herb or tonic.  So plants such as ephedra (ma huang), cohosh and mugwort are best left on the shelf.  You should be fine with fruit teas though.

coffee, facts, health coffee, facts, health, tea