Green Tea, Black Tea, Herbal Tea: Healthful Beverage Choices

Even though the claims may be exaggerated, if you're going to drink much of any beverage other than water, tea is probably your best choice. The health benefits of green tea have been trumpeted in the media recently.
Tea is water plus phytochemicals including caffeine, and very little else unless you add a lot of sugar. Both green and black tea come from the same plant, camellia sinensis. To make green tea, the leaves are steamed, rolled and dried. For black tea, the leaves are dried, then fermented and fired.
Both green and black tea contain phytochemicals that have been linked to reduced rates of certain types of cancers. When brewed at normal strength, both contain about half of the caffeine found in a cup of coffee. If caffeine is a concern, de-caffeinated teas are available.
Herbal teas are dried leaves of a wide variety of plants, which you steep in hot water as you would regular tea. They are generally caffeine free. Many claims are made for the phytochemicals found in herbal teas, but all we can safely say is: yes, they do contain phytochemicals, which may be beneficial or harmful, depending on the plant used and the amount you drink. If you have hay fever or other allergies, be aware that herbal teas made from plants in the family you are sensitive to can trigger the same reactions.
If you need to drink more than a few cups of a beverage, make it water. That's true for all foods, not just tea. So enjoy your tea, but remember, what is beneficial in moderation may be harmful in large amounts.

Tea appears to be healthful and may contribute phytochemicals to your diet that you would not otherwise get.
Dr. Gabe Mirkin has been a radio talk show host for 25 years and practicing physician for more than 40 years; he is board certified in four specialties, including sports medicine. Read or listen to hundreds of his fitness and health reports at
http://www.DrMirkin.com
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Green Tea & Caffeine

So you've heard that green tea is good for you, and have considered trying some out to see what the big fuss is all about. If you have checked out what is on the typical grocery store shelf, you most likely have seen green tea bags of various descriptions. Sitting amongst these is usually a decaffeinated type as well. If one wants green tea but at the same time does not want the caffeine, most people would assume all they need to do is go for the decaffeinated version. Unfortunately, it's not quite so simple. What most people are not aware of is that the decaffeination process pretty much ruins the major health benefits associated with green tea. There are numerous reasons for this, but to understand why you need to have an idea on how green tea is processed. It all has to do with oxygen.
Decaffeinated green tea is just about unheard of in Japan, home of the world's finest green teas. There really is no place in the processing where a decaffeination process would work and not ruin the tea. This processing involves steaming, rolling, and drying, and takes about three hours start to finish.

Although it comes from the exact same species of plant (Camellia Sinensis) as black tea, it is picked and then process immediately to prevent oxidation of the leaves. Green tea, however, is not like that. This gives black tea its unique taste. When you drink regular English tea, those leaves have been exposed to oxygen and fermented that way on purpose. That is from contact with the air, or more specifically, the oxygen in the air.

Notice how it starts to turn brown? Think about what an apple looks like after it's been cut and sitting on the counter for an hour.
Quite often, the second infusion is greener than the first, although it won't be quite as aromatic or tasty. Since nearly all of the caffeine is in the first infusion, getting a quality decaf green tea is going to be better than the best decaffeinated green tea out on the market. As much of a shame as it seems to be to dump the first infusion (which has the most taste and best aroma), rest assured that the 2nd infusion of a high quality loose leaf Japanese green tea, preferably from the first harvest. That said, if it's a caffeine free cup of quality green tea is as simple as brewing an infusion, dumping it, and then re-brewing.

That's slightly less than regular black tea just a fraction of the caffeine in coffee. No, it is possible, but first it's important to know that green tea does not have high caffeine content, only about 30mg per cup. So does that mean one cannot drink decaffeinated green tea?
Based out of Japan, in addition to offering a wealth of information on the health benefits of green tea, O-Cha.com offers a large selection of loose leaf green tea, matcha, and tea brewing supplies. Kevin Moore is the founder of O-Cha.com, one of the internet's first and largest websites dedicated to Japanese green tea.
http://www.o-cha.com
Contact him at
kevinrm@o-cha.com

What are the Essentials of High Quality Loose Leaf Tea?

Critical elements in the process include: Demand for high quality loose leaf tea is experiencing strong growth and for those interested in high quality loose leaf tea is experiencing strong growth and for those interested in high quality loose tea, more information will aid in decision making.
Source of the Tea
Manufacturing Processes
Purchasing, Quality Control and Customer Service
Source of the Tea
All tea comes from the plant Camellia Sinensis but there is where the similarity between high quality loose leaf tea and other, lesser quality ends. From the time the tea leaves are plucked until the time the consumer tastes the brew, a number of critical events affect the tea experience.
High quality loose leaf teas are carefully selected as only the finest of these rare orthodox teas, which are processed slowly and hand-crafted with extreme care.
Tea, like wine, is harvested and processed into the final product on the grounds of the garden or estate. The taste and quality of any tea varietal depends upon the specific growing conditions. Factors such as altitude, climate, soil, weather, and plucking season all affect the final product.
To produce just one pound of quality loose leaf tea, it takes approximately 3,000 hand plucked leaves. Only the most tender leaves and young buds are selected. After the leaves are picked, the precise art of tea making begins.
Manufacturing Processes
Tea is manufactured by two different processes.
Most ordinary tea is machine processed by the C.T.C. method (crush, tear, curl). The resulting small, broken pieces are used in tea bags or iced tea concentrates. Less than 2% of the world's tea is of superior quality, hand-processed in the classic, time-honored method known as orthodox manufacture.
And, of course, only the finest. Connoisseurs will find no soggy paper tea bags and no trendy herbals from high quality loose tea suppliers; only real tea from the Camellia Sinensis bush. The highest quality loose teas are hand-plucked and meticulously crafted to enhance leaf character, aroma, color, clarity, body, complexity, and above all, flavor.

Whole-leaf varietals retain the subtle nuances of flavor so prized by discriminating palates throughout the centuries. High quality suppliers are dedicated to offering outstanding, whole-leaf teas of the greatest quality and finesse.
Purchasing, Quality Control and Customer Service
Nevertheless, quality tea is easily available through e-commerce outlets on the internet. Most loose leaf teas are not available in retail outlets. Access to high quality loose leaf tea is the final element.
Loose leaf tea is ideally suited to e-commerce because it is light and easy to transport. Increasingly e-commerce over the internet has proven to be an efficient and easy way to purchase quality products and those e-commerce sites that are customer friendly also offer convenient and low cost home delivery.
When evaluating e-commerce sites, the consumer should consider those sites that are interactive, easy to use and offer rich features such as auto shipping, multiple destination shipments, gift shipments and delivery flexibility.
The loose leaf tea experience is all about quality and quality does not end with manufacturing. Those suppliers that are truly dedicated to quality will maintain quality control over each shipment received from the producing tea garden.
Since almost all quality loose leaf tea comes from other countries such as China, India, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and others, choose a supplier who cups or tastes each shipment before acceptance. This measure of quality control will guarantee consistent quality but most loose leaf tea suppliers skip this important step. Check with a potential supplier to determine their cupping commitment.
Since the purchase of high quality loose tea tends to be a long term relationship, consideration of the needs of the customer and customer satisfaction is paramount. In addition to quality control, customer service is a critical element in the loose tea relationship.
The best suppliers have a culture of customer service, open lines of communication to customer service personnel and solicit feedback from customers as a way to maintain consistent quality.
Golden Moon Tea's website is found at Stout is Chairman of the Board of Golden Moon Tea is a supplier of high quality loose leaf tea and high quality tea ware. Jon M.
http://www.Goldenmoontea.com

Tea Varietals

Wu Long? Green? Black?

What's your cup of tea?
Or something more exotic like pu-erh or white tea?
The major difference between all of these types of tea is how the leaves are processed after they are picked. No matter which your preference, all tea comes from the same plant - Camellia sinensis.
The others are primarily used as flowering shrubs. There are as many as 300 species of Camellia, but only one of them is used to make tea. Camellia is a genus of the family Theaceae. Even so, not all tea leaves are equal.
The assamica variety will grow to a larger plant than sinensis and has larger, thinner leaves. The sinensis variety has relatively small and narrow leaves and is more tolerant to cold. assamica (Assam tea or Indian tea). sinensis (China tea) and Camellia sinensis var.

The "tea Camellia" (Camellia sinensis) has two varieties - Camellia sinensis var.
Varietals have special characteristics that make them suitable for growing in a particular area or for producing a certain type of tea. As with most Camellias, Camellia sinensis is very easy to hybridize and this had led to the development of more than 3000 tea ‘varietals'.
Other varietals may have higher resistance to diseases which can affect the tea plant. White tea, for example, is produced from a varietal that has an abundance of fine hairs on the young leaf shoots. Varietals can be identified by leaf shape, coloring, leaf size, or other desirable characteristics.
‘Da Bai' (big white) is a varietal used to make the Japanese green tea of the same name. Many varietals are given names that describe the appearance or the use of the tea leaf.
A varietal traditionally used for white tea could be processed into wu long tea, or a black tea varietal could be used to make green tea. Most varietals have come to be associated with a certain type of tea, but this does not mean that specific varietals cannot be used for other teas.
The taste of tea is affected by the soil, the climate, the season, the varietal, the variety, the processing method, the skill of the tea processor, the brewing method, and the brewing utensils. One of the reasons why tea is so interesting is because of its limitless possibilities.
No wonder then that tea has been so popular for so many years - it's a taste of life. All of these factors affect the flavor and quality of the tea.
This article is provided by
TeaGenius.com - for all your tea information
This article may be freely reproduced on the condition that the credits and links remain intact and active. .
Information about the types of tea, tea production, tea growing, the health benefits of tea, and making and serving tea can be found at Tea Genius is a complete knowledge base of tea. Paul Dickson is a contributing writer Tea Genius.com.
www.TeaGenius.com
If you are a tea lover or simply want to know more about the wonderful beverage called tea, visit
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The Benefits of Green Tea

It is a miracle. People have been drinking green tea as treatment for everything from weight loss to curing cancer to skin problems.
In the 1994 edition of the Journal of National Cancer Institute, the results of an epidemiological study showed that one of the health benefits of drinking green tea is that it can reduce the risk of esophageal cancer in Chinese men and women by up to 60%.
A powerful antioxidant, EGCG can not only inhibit the growth of cancer cells but can also destroy them without harming healthy cells. The rich presence of catechin polyphenols, particularly epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) is the reason why green tea has so many health benefits.
This is a leading cause of strokes and heart attacks. Also another benefit of green tea is its ability to lower down cholesterol levels and improve the ratio between good (HDL) cholesterol and bad (LDL) cholesterol.
Green tea has greater health benefits compared to other Chinese teas like oolong and black tea, which come from the plant Camellia sinensis. What makes green tea different is the process by which it is made. Green tea owes much of its health benefits to how the Camellia sinensis leaves are steamed. The process stops the EGCG health benefit of green tea from oxidizing.
Many People have embarked on green tea dieting with great success and benefit. This was proven in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 1999, men who take both caffeine and green tea burn down more calories than men who only take caffeine or a placebo. Drinking green tea can allow more calories to be burnt which will result in weight loss.
Another health benefit of green tea is that it can help prevent food poisoning and also prevent tooth decay.
Well known for its countless health benefits such weight loss and curing cancer, green tea is a miracle.

The Health Benefits of Green Tea

Now recent medical studies in both asia and the west are providing a scientific basis for the claim that drinking green tea has very significant health benefits. Green tea became part of the Chinese diet and many important health benefits were attributed to it. Some tea leaves accidentally fell into boiling water, and he tried it and found it invigorating.

According to legend, tea was discovered by a Chinese emperor called Shen Nung. The Chinese have known about Green tea as a powerful medication for at least 4000 years.
Thus green and black teas have different chemical properties. Black teas on the other hand are made from fermented leaves and as a result have less nutritional and enzyme content as the green tea. In this way the leaves remain green and the active substances within the leaves retain their qualities.

Green tea is unfermented tea meaning that the leaves used for green tea are steamed soon after been plucked in order to prevent the oxidation of the leaves. The difference between the three main types of tea is the way that they are produced. Green tea, like black tea is made from the leaves of the plant Camellia sinensis.
Antioxidants help your body fight against free radicals which cause damage to cells and tisuues in your body. One study concluded that consuming three cups of tea a day produced a similar amount of antioxidants as eating six apples. The antioxidant activity of tea has been compared to that of fruit and vegetables in a number of studies.

Modern science has in recent times been able to demonstrate that green tea is beneficial to one's health and this is mainly due to the fact that tea contains high levels of antioxidants called polyphenols or flavonoids.
Recent medical studies suggest green tea to be beneficial in many areas including the following: While all tea is healthy to drink, it is green tea that contains the highest level of flavonoids.
-Digestive and respiratory health.
-Lowers cholesterol levels
-Boosts your immune system
-Reduces high blood pressure
-Arthritis - anti-inflammatory effect.
-Oral hygiene - due to antibacterial properties.
-Skin conditions such as acne
-Lowers blood sugar
Much more research needs to be conducted in this area but the signs are certainly very encouraging. It was discovered that those men who were given green tea extract burned more calories per day than those who were not given the extract. A study was conducted of ten healthy men over a period of 6 weeks. Recently published research in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests that an extract from green tea may speed up fat oxidation.

Weight loss is another area that is attracting huge attention.
Anyone for tea!
Lorraine Bevere is the owner and operator of
FOG Tea
which is
a premier source of information about tea. For questions or
comments about this article, please visit:

http://fogtea.com

Green Tea vs Black Tea - Which Is Better?

Which tea is better - green tea or black tea? As we all know, green tea is a very powerful weapon against several illnesses. But how about black tea? Do we also get health benefits from it?
Black tea does have several health benefits but they are not nearly as wide-ranging and powerful as those of green tea.
But what makes green tea more beneficial than black tea?
Catechins are, by the way, the one responsible for green tea's amazing health benefits. Catechins are green tea's main ingredient containing eight times more than black tea. The answer is "catechins"!
Bottom line is that the more catechins a tea has, the better it is for your general health.
Unfortunately, these catechins are mostly oxidized into theaflavins and thearubigens during the manufacture of black tea.
Theaflavins and thearubigens do have some of their own health benefits, but they can't compare with the wide-ranging effects of green tea's catechins, particularly the powerful EGCG.
While a cup of black tea contains about 5- 10 mg of the powerful catechin EGCG, a cup of green tea contains more than eight times than amount, or 40-90 mg.
Although green and black teas came from the same plant - Camellia Sinensis, what makes them different from each other in terms of taste and health benefits is the processing method.
This processing is so minimal that green tea can be consumed the same leaves are picked. When making green tea, processors lightly steam or gently heat the leaves to stop the oxidation process.
On the other hand, tea leaves designed to become black tea are allowed to oxidize and undergo considerably more processing, including a fermentation process that produces the dark-brown and even reddish color of black tea.
But the process used to make a black tea destroys compounds called polyphenols. It is the polyphenols that are responsible for the long list of health benefits of green tea.
Despite its stronger color and flavor, black tea cannot come close to green tea as far as health benefits are concerned.
Because green tea's processing is as little as possible, green tea retains its original polyphenols.
Rose Antonio has been a green tea drinker for many, many years. She has a special interest in alternative healing and natural remedies.
Though she has tried different types of tea from different countries, she always go back to Japanese Green Tea not only because of its taste but more so because of its amazing health benefits gathered from years and years of research and from talking to many health enthusiasts.