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Top 10 Health Benefits of Drinking Tea

There are lots of reasons why I enjoy a hot cup of tea: I love the aroma of
various flavors of tea; holding onto a hot tea mug warms my hands on a cold
winter morning; sipping tea in front of the fireplace is a great way to relax.
And those are just the feel-good reasons. If you’re not drinking tea yet,
read up on these 10 ways tea does your body good and then see if you’re ready
to change your Starbucks order!

1. Tea contains antioxidants. Like the Rust-Oleum paint that keeps your
outdoor furniture from rusting, tea’s antioxidants protect your body from the
ravages of aging and the effects of pollution.

2. Tea has less caffeine than coffee. Coffee usually has two to three times
the caffeine of tea (unless you’re a fan of Morning Thunder, which combines
caffeine with mate, an herb that acts like caffeine in our body). An
eight-ounce cup of coffee contains around 135 mg caffeine; tea contains only
30 to 40 mg per cup. If drinking coffee gives you the jitters, causes
indigestion or headaches or interferes with sleep — switch to tea.

3. Tea may reduce your risk of heart attack and stroke. Unwanted blood clots
formed from cholesterol and blood platelets cause heart attack and stroke.
Drinking tea may help keep your arteries smooth and clog-free, the same way
a drain keeps your bathroom pipes clear. A 5.6-year study from the Netherlands
found a 70 percent lower risk of fatal heart attack in people who drank at
least two to three cups of black tea daily compared to non-tea drinkers.

4. Tea protects your bones. It’s not just the milk added to tea that builds
strong bones. One study that compared tea drinkers with non-drinkers, found
that people who drank tea for 10 or more years had the strongest bones, even
after adjusting for age, body weight, exercise, smoking and other risk factors.
The authors suggest that this may be the work of tea’s many beneficial
phytochemicals.

5. Tea gives you a sweet smile. One look at the grimy grin of Austin Powers
and you may not think drinking tea is good for your teeth, but think again.
It’s the sugar added to it that’s likely to blame for England’s bad dental
record. Tea itself actually contains fluoride and tannins that may keep
plaque at bay. So add unsweetened tea drinking to your daily dental routine
of brushing and flossing for healthier teeth and gums.

6. Tea bolsters your immune defenses. Drinking tea may help your body’s immune system fight off infection. When 21 volunteers drank either five cups of tea or coffee each day for four weeks, researchers saw higher immune system
activity in the blood of the tea drinkers.

7. Tea protects against cancer. Thank the polyphenols, the antioxidants found
in tea, once again for their cancer-fighting effects. While the overall research
is inconclusive, there are enough studies that show the potential protective
effects of drinking tea to make adding tea to your list of daily beverages.

8. Tea helps keep you hydrated. Caffeinated beverages, including tea, used to
be on the list of beverages that didn’t contribute to our daily fluid needs.
Since caffeine is a diuretic and makes us pee more, the thought was that
caffeinated beverages couldn’t contribute to our overall fluid requirement.
However, recent research has shown that the caffeine really doesn’t matter —
tea and other caffeinated beverages definitely contribute to our fluid needs.
The only time the caffeine becomes a problem as far as fluid is concerned is
when you drink more than five or six cups of a caffeinated beverage at one
time.

9. Tea is calorie-free. Tea doesn’t have any calories, unless you add sweetener
or milk. Consuming even 250 fewer calories per day can result in losing one
pound per week. If you’re looking for a satisfying, calorie-free beverage,
tea is a top choice.

10. Tea increases your metabolism. Lots of people complain about a slow
metabolic rate and their inability to lose weight. Green tea has been shown
to actually increase metabolic rate so that you can burn 70 to 80 additional
calories by drinking just five cups of green tea per day. Over a year’s time
you could lose eight pounds just by drinking green tea. Of course, taking a
15-minute walk every day will also burn calories.

There really isn’t enough difference to get overly excited about. All teas
generally contain the same amount of flavonoids. Green and black tea come
from the same plants, but green tea is dried for a shorter time and doesn’t
go through a fermenting process used for black tea.

Some companies use chemicals to decaffeinate tea; others use a water process.
The chemical process removes more of the beneficial polyphenols, so read
labels carefully when choosing decaf.

3. How do you brew a perfect cup of tea
For hot tea:

Brew your tea with boiling water, as described above.
Chill with ice and keep in the fridge.