How do the health effects of green tea and black tea differ?
Monday, May 4th, 2009 at
2:12 am
I keep seeing the health benefits of green tea.
I believe most of these studies are done in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, where green tea is prevelent.
However, I mostly drink black tea.
How does the fermentation of tea affect the antioxidant levels, and other phytochemicals?
Tagged with: antioxidant levels • benefits of green tea • black tea • fermentation • Green Tea • health benefits of green tea • japan korea • phytochemicals • taiwan
Filed under: Green Tea
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Green tea antioxidants consist mainly of small molecules catechins, such as EGCG, ECG EG etc.
During the tea making process, these antioxidants oxidise to form larger molecules such as thearubigin and theaflavin.
The evidence is mixed so far, but there are studies that found catechins to be a lot more powerful than thearubigins and theaflavins.
However, more studies are still needed to understand why green tea has more health benefits than black tea.
Some scientists say there are more green tea health benefits because there are more studies on green tea. It does not make any difference which tea you drink since they are the same species.
Personally, I doubt it. If you look at the proportion of studies showing positive results, green tea do better than black tea.
The problem is that black tea molecules are larger and more difficult to study. So it will be a while before we understand the difference between them.
Why not drink both?
green tea retains it's antioxidant properties while black tea is refined tea which in the process loses some of it's antioxidant props
Black tea is a stronger flavored type of green tea. They pretty much have the same antioxidant levels, the only differences are the flavors green tea can come in. They are both delicious, fermentation only depletes small amounts of nutrition from the tea leaves but still one of the healiest beverages in the world. Prevents cancer, prolongs life, etc…
My great grandfather in Taiwan drank black tea his whole life and lived well into his 90s, he also smoked about 10 packs a day. So it is obvious tea plays a big part in prolonging the body's healing abilities. Drink them all, they are ALL good for you!!!
Try Oolong tea, it is a very delicious Asian flavor of green tea, might be slightly healthier than the others because the flavor is taken from a root. Roots are packed with antioxidants! Try ginger and Korean Ginseng! Good luck and happy tea drinking!
Green tea and black tea are both pretty good for you. Even more so if you compare them to the other horrible stuff out there you can drink. Black tea tastes better though! Try http://www.customleaf.com for good black tea.