Hands up, who likes a nice cup of tea? I think I am a bit of a tea addict, especially now that I work from home for half of the week. Luckily it’s not caffeinated tea that I am addicted to (although I’m unlikely to turn down a cup of earl grey first thing in the morning), I like all sorts of tea!
And in a recent lecture I heard about white tea being really pretty good for you, so I thought I’d give it a try!
There’s an awful lot of research going on at the moment about the health benefits of tea, but because white tea is full of flavonoids (a type of antioxidant) it is thought to have the following benefits:
- Reduce cardiovascular disease risk
- Potential reduction in cancer risk
- Potential reduction in diabetes risk
- Likely to aid with weight management
- Some evidence of improved cognitive function
How amazing is that? From tea! There’s still a lot more research to be done, however, one important point to note – the tea also tastes good! I followed the instructions to brew for 3 minutes and although it looked quite dark and I assumed it would have an overpowering taste, actually it was pleasant, light and quite floral…!
PS – Antioxidants are natural compounds which work to ‘quench’ free radicals, reducing and stopping the damage they cause. Free radicals are naturally present in the body but also increased by external factors such as smoking, stress, UV rays. If anti oxidants and free radicals get out of balance in favour of free radicals, they can cause significant damage to the body
In case you’re interested, this info came from a lecture from Dr Lisa Ryan at Oxford Brookes Uni on 19/2/2013.