Sitting down with a cup of tea is one of life’s little pleasures, but the big plus is that it can also have huge health benefits.
Taking a break with a cuppa is a time-honoured tradition. More than 165 million cups are brewed here every day – but many experts believe that tea isn’t just a relaxation aid. Drinking tea could be good for maintaining your physical and mental health, say tea lovers.
“There are lots of studies where results have shown that tea drinkers have a lower risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes,” says Dr Carrie Ruxton, of the UK Tea Advisory Panel.
While no one’s currently suggesting that a tea drinker won’t get a heart attack, the evidence is mounting up in its favour. From studies looking at tea’s influence on the heart, to the brew’s effect on cancer cells – there aren’t many diseases which haven’t been put to the tea test, and come out positively.
But while we’re waiting for the final results to come in – and hopefully tell us “a cup of tea a day, will keep the strokes at bay”, let’s see what it’s really good for…
Tea versus coffee
The idea that tea contains as much caffeine as coffee is totally wrong, according to the Tea Advisory Panel. A cup of tea contains about a third of the caffeine in an average cup of filtered coffee and proportionately much less compared to an espresso, say the experts. Coffee drinkers could also experience increased levels of stress and anxiety, due to drinking larger quantities of caffeine.
Tea aficionados would add that the reason tea drinkers seem calm yet alert is down to a unique amino acid called L-theanine. “The good mood feeling you get with a cup of tea isn’t only habit, there’s an active component which boosts relaxation,” says Ruxton.
“With tea you get this unique combination of feeling relaxed and having your mood improved, while feeling alert on top of that, which you don’t get with anything else. I think that’s why, over the years, we’ve associated a cuppa with sitting down and putting your feet up. She adds: “The British public love their tea, and the good news is that it can boost your health as well.”
Tea dehydrates the body
One of the myths about this hot drink is that it’s not as good as water when it comes to hydration. But the truth is that tea – which has about 40mg of caffeine in a mug, compared to around 100mg of caffeine in coffee – hydrates just as much. Ruxton recently compared hydration levels in men after they’d drunk four mugs of tea and four mugs of water.
“It’s a common misconception that drinking tea can increase the risk of dehydration because of the caffeine content, but this study proves that there’s absolutely no truth behind that theory,” she says. “Drinking moderate amounts of tea – four mugs a day – offered the same hydration qualities as plain water. So as well as being refreshing and delicious, tea is an excellent way to keep hydration levels topped up throughout the day.”
Good news for regular tea drinkers then – these cups will officially count towards your six to eight glasses of fluid a day!
Written by Lisa Salmon
TEA FACTS
Tea is the second most popular drink in the UK, after water.
The average tea intake in the UK is 2-3 cups a day.
Teabags are used to make 96% of cups of tea.
There are no tannins in tea. Tannins are a defined group of polyphenols, and tea polyphenols don’t share the same structures.
Most people (98%) take their tea with milk, but only 30% take sugar in tea.
We drink 60.2 billion cups of tea per year.
Tea contains half the caffeine of coffee.
The British have been drinking tea for over 350 years.
Anna, 7th Duchess of Bedford, is reputed to have come up with the idea of afternoon tea in the early 1800s. She fancied something to ward off the hunger pangs between lunch and dinner.
80% of office workers claim they find out more about what’s going on at work over a cup of tea than in any other way.
Tea was created more than 5000 years ago in China.