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| It's high time for tea |
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--Green, black or white. Damia Barr says the cuppa is causing a stir in health circles Put that cappuccino down. Walk away from the latte. In case you haven’t yet heard, tea is brewing up a storm. Iced or hot, tea is cool. We’re a nation of tea-drinkers; this year we will spend £700 million on 62 billion cups. But we’re going off the great British cuppa. Sales of black tea are falling while the amount of speciality, herbal and fruit varieties sold has risen by as much as 50 per cent, according to a recent report by Mintel. “Traditional tea has maintained a relatively staid image and is now competing with more exotic herbal tea options,” says Ellen Shiels, the author of the Mintel report. These range from Ayurvedic teas blended from a selection of herbs and flowers, which claim to stimulate, calm or detox, to green and white teas, the latest must-haves in the herbal medicine cabinet. The British Nutrition Foundation agrees on the benefits of a nice cup of tea. “One study found that two cups of tea a day had antioxidant power equivalent to 400mg of vitamin C, or five portions of fruit and vegetables. But it is important to continue including fruits and vegetables in your diet, too, as they offer health benefits beyond antioxidant power. Although including one or two cups of tea in your diet might be a good way to boost your antioxidant intake further.” But it’s green tea that has recently caught our imagination. It promises to waft the drinker to Shangri-La on soothing waves of relaxation. It’s an active ingredient in my shampoo. And my moisturiser. Häagen-Dazs and Kit Kat have released special green-tea editions. As I write, a green-tea candle flickers on my desk. All low-caffeine, of course. “Black tea does contain slightly more caffeine than green,” says Cath MacDonald, the nutritionist for the Tea Council. “But that’s still less than half of what you would get in a cup of coffee.” Coffee gives you a buzz; whereas tea gives you a Zen-like hum. Black and green tea come from the same plant (Camellia sinensis) and have similar health-giving properties. But green tea is less processed and so it contains more antioxidants, those busy little moppers-up of cardiac-threatening free radicals. It also helps to regulate your blood sugar levels, as well as reducing levels of harmful LDL cholesterol. The United States Department of Agriculture is soon to officially recognise green tea as a source of antioxidants. What was a fad is now a serious weapon in the fight against heart disease and cancer. Doctors may soon be prescribing cuppas. Now there is a new tea on the block so you can feel even more virtuous when you’re sipping your cuppa. White tea — the latest addition to the antioxidant arsenal of the tea drinker — isn’t normal milky tea but a purer, less processed version of the green and black tea. “The leaves look white because they’re covered in downy hairs,” says Bruce Ginsberg, the managing director of Dragonfly Teas, which introduced white tea into the UK. “True white tea is grown in tiny quantities at the top of mountains in the Fujian province of China.” White tea is the unopened bud of the Camellia sinensis and, according to a report by the Linus Pauling Institute in Oregon, where frequent studies are conducted into the healing benefits of tea, it was found that “white tea, the least processed of all teas, has the highest levels of antioxidants and polyphenols, thought to protect against some cancers and heart diseases”. Source: www.timesonline.co.uk |
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