Its health powers may be hyped, but it still has strong selling points, advocates say
- JAMES HEFLIN
Oliver Rich, president of Tea Guys, fills glasses with matcha powder.
Not so fast.
Turns out that getting
antioxidants from tea is a complicated matter. And those much-touted
antioxidants? Found as well in fruits and vegetables or supplement
pills, their usefulness is also more controversial than a fad-happy food
industry leads us to believe.
Ingesting too many actually could be harmful.
“Oxygen is life-giving
as well as life-taking,” said nutritionist Bruce Homstead of
Easthampton. “It helps you age your cells in the same way a piece of
exposed iron ages with rust. Your body is rusting (oxidizing) all the
time.”
Antioxidants — there are
hundreds — are chemicals which help cells avoid that rusting. But
Homstead says these substances can be double-edged. “They’re pretty
powerful. ... you can take too much of the stuff, actually allowing the
damage to the cell to occur. And who knows what the exact balance point
is?”
When it comes to tea,
some studies have turned up positive effects from the antioxidants it
contains, chiefly one called apigallocatechin gallate, or ECGC. Other
research has shown less of a benefit. The University of Maryland Medical
Center’s Medical Reference Guide says that, based on at least one large
study, green tea lowers total cholesterol and raises levels of HDL, or
so-called “good” cholesterol.
Other research has shown
that antioxidants in both green and black tea may help kill cancerous
cells and stop them from growing, but the studies may not have factored
in the cultural context of the tea drinkers — for example, the rest of
their diets. Therefore, says U.M., the jury is out: “It is not possible
to know for sure from these studies whether green tea actually prevents
cancer in people.”Even the National Cancer Institute seems stumped, calling the evidence regarding tea and cancer “inconclusive at present.”
So why has the idea gained such prominence?
Thank the food
industry’s marketing machine. Based on such promising, but inconclusive
studies it’s been busily promoting the benefits of antioxidants for
years.
A cautious stance
Local tea purveyors
have taken a more cautious stance all along, though they say tea’s
relaxing effects are healthy regardless of the more sweeping claims.
“We’ve never really promoted drinking tea for health benefits,” said Robert Heiss, who runs Northampton-based Teatrekker.com
with his wife, Mary Lou Heiss. “Our focus is on drinking tea because
it’s a delicious beverage. Anything you get beyond that is a bonus.” For
many years, the couple ran a shop in Northampton, which recently
closed, and have traveled widely to study and write about tea.
But if you are seeking
an antioxidant rich beverage, Heiss says, the green tea in grocery store
tea bags isn’t going to do much for you, health or flavorwise. “Cheap
tea is cheap tea — it tends to be old,” and from parts of the world that
aren’t traditional tea-growing regions.
Tea should reach consumers soon after harvest or whatever antioxidants it might have contained will have diminished, Heiss says.
He believes that green
tea’s health benefits may be real, but says that most studies don’t
consider cultural factors. In Japan, for instance, where green tea is
widely consumed, other aspects of Japanese diet and habit are also
different from Western lifestyles, and may have as much or more to do
with good health than the beverage, he says.
Oliver Rich, president
of Tea Guys in Whately, echoes Heiss’ ambivalence. There are, he says,
too many variables in the processing and preparation of tea to really
know exactly what chemicals you’re consuming. “How it’s treated by
people (who handle it) will impact health benefits and flavors.” he
said. “Even when you add milk, it affects absorption of minerals. You’re
adding something, so you’re changing the chemistry.”
Still, there are some broad guidelines that hold true: Green tea has more ECGC and less caffeine than black tea.
Guide to green
Drinking green tea, if
you aren’t used to it, can be an alien experience. It tastes nothing
like black tea. It tends to be herbaceous, grassy and subtle. It’s hard
to imagine that such starkly different flavors could come from the same
plant, but all tea is made from the tea plant, camellia senensis. Herbal
“tea” is another matter, and its proper name isn’t really “tea,” but
“tisane.”
It’s only differences in
processing that create the bold bitterness of English Breakfast style
and the buttered-grass umami of Japanese green tea.
The broad category of
green tea also includes a surprisingly large variety of tastes, though
the processing is often little more than an application of heat to dry
the leaves.
If you’re bent on
finding the most antioxidant-rich green, Heiss offers additional
guidance. “If one is going to add green tea to the diet in the hope it
will have some health benefits, there are two distinctively different
types of green tea to focus on — spring greens and country greens. Just
like what happens with any plant, whether it’s basil, marijuana,
whatever — the stuff that emerges in the spring has more of whatever you
want.”
Spring green teas are
the product of the first post-winter leaves. “The tender leaves that
come out are highly regarded for flavor,” Heiss said. “There’s a limited
amount of that available.”
That first harvest, or
“flush,” is followed by a second that’s much larger. The product of that
harvest is country green. “Because of rain, and because it’s getting
warmer, these leaves are not as tender,” Heiss said. “They have a more
pronounced flavor.”
Rich points out another
tea style that’s particularly high in antioxidants: Japanese matcha, or
powdered green tea. Because the leaves have been ground into powder, hot
water extracts more of the tea’s compounds, from caffeine to ECGC.
At Tea Guys’ Whately storefront, Rich offers customers the chance to taste the many varieties to find what they like.
The way to brew
The brewing process is
where tea aficionados really bristle at a medicinal approach to tea.
That’s because flavor and antioxidant release are at odds. The health
community advises that green tea should be steeped for a long time in
order to release the most antioxidants.
“I certainly don’t buy
into people like Dr. Oz and Dr. Weil,” Heiss said. Steeping green tea in
hot water for a long time essentially makes medicine out of it, he
says. “If you do that, it’s gonna taste like dreck. You’re gonna hate
it. But it’s going to have more of these compounds you theoretically
need.”
So what does he suggest?
“For good green tea,
you want to have the water at a boil, then let it sit for maybe three
minutes. Then it’s at 170 or 180 degrees.” That’s when you pour it over
the tea. “You want a steep time of no more than two minutes.”
Rich offers similar
guidance, and points out another option. “You can also cold-brew,” he
said. That’s a simple process — just let it sit in cold water. “It will
start steeping right away.” Steeping times vary according to tea and
taste, and the result can be drunk cold or heated.
Green tea comes with
another perk: You don’t have to throw it out after you’ve used it once.
In China and Japan, green tea is often steeped several times. “In
China,” Rich said, “each (successive) cup has a name.”
Usually, a third or even
fourth infusion is possible. That all adds up, Heiss points out, to the
equivalent time in the water that health-centric antioxidant-seekers
recommend. But you get more tea, and the flavor is much better, says
Rich. “If you pay attention to the steeping time, and do one and a half
or two minutes at 165 to 180 degrees, when you take the tea out, you get
a much sweeter cup.”
Green tea usually has
less caffeine than black tea. But if you’d like to avoid caffeine
altogether, the repeat steepings offer another benefit, he adds. “Most
of the caffeine is generally removed in the first 30 seconds of
steeping.”
So, steep once, pour off, and steep again, and you’ll have a cup with far less caffeine.
The research on tea
isn’t conclusive, and the world of tea is complex. But in the end,
Heiss, Rich and Homstead offer the same advice — just sit and enjoy.
“The way I look at tea,”
Homstead said, “it’s got two properties. Not only does it have natural
plant chemicals that are good for all kinds of things, but it’s also a
soothing drink, a calming drink.”
Heiss offers a similar
view. “Buy some good green tea, steep it properly, then drink it. What
you’re going to get out of it really is positive. Take the time during
one or two points in your day — make tea, drink it out of a (nice) cup,
and take a break from the frenetic part of life. That’s going to have as
much benefit as whatever’s in that cup.”
James Heflin can be reached at jheflin@gazettenet.com.
http://www.gazettenet.com/living/health/20671633-95/the-goodness-of-green-tea-its-health-powers-may-be-hyped-but-it-still
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