A Cup Of Tea Is Nourishment For Body And Soul

Almost everyone loves tea. This delicious as well as healthy drink has been around for ages. Tea comes in a rich array of types and flavors. Whether you drink your tea hot or cold, you are sure to have an enjoyable healthy drink.

Tea Benefits

Tea has many beneficial properties one of which is flavoniod antioxidants and we all need those to keep our bodies in healthy working order. The antioxidants in tea can help protect the body from the affects of free radicals which can damage cells.

Some of these antioxidants have proven useful as anti-allergic, anti-viral, anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory agents, as well as helping to boost the immune system.

Tea is helpful in weight loss and the protection against Alzheimers, heart disease and may help lower the risk of some types of cancers. Tea also has fluoride, which is great news for your teeth and bones. Therefore, the next time you just want a nice drink of tea remember it is good for your body as well as being appetizing.

Actually, after water, tea is one of the most common consumed drinks. No matter whether it is black, green, white, Oolong or herbal teas. All of these different types of teas offer their own special tastes and health benefits.
All tea grows on a white flowering evergreen tea tree. Every bit of real tea comes from the same types of Camellia Sinensis trees better known as tea trees. Tea trees are harvested year round.

Most of the tea tree plants resemble a bush from being pruned, however if left to grow wild it reaches a height of nearly thirty feet.

Here is a list of the types of tea and some of their benefits:

• 1. Black Tea - Black tea is helpful by affecting the levels of stress hormones thereby aiding in a quicker recovery time from the stresses of daily life. It also lowers the risk of heart attacks. Black tea is helpful as a diet aid.
• 2. Green Tea - Green tea can protect against several different kinds of cancer, such as lung, breast and prostate cancers. It is also useful as a diet aid since it speeds up the metabolic rates while speeding up the fat oxidation. This offers a feeling of increased energy.
• 3. White Tea - White tea has more anti-bacterial and anti-viral agents than Green tea, while being generally comparable to Green tea. White tea is actually immature tea and has a fuzzy silver coloring. White tea also contains a stronger content of anti-oxidants that defends against cancer causing cells better than any other tea.
• 4. Oolong Tea - Oolong tea tastes more like green tea than black tea. It has a strong flowery taste that is a little on the bitter side, but surprisingly it leaves a pleasantly sweet aftertaste. It is helpful as a diet aid, while it also helps prevent skin damage and enhances the function of enzymes because of its anti-oxidant properties.
• 5. Herbal Tea - Herbal teas are the blending of flowers, seeds, leaves and roots from plants. They are not true tea, as they don't come from the evergreen tea tree. To be fair I need to say that all teas are herbal as they all come from plant source.
  
  Actually, herbal teas offer a much wider assortment of flavors and health benefits than most other real teas. There are a lot of claims made about herb tea and its benefits. We hope to be able to sort out these claims and report to you what works and what doesn't

5 Cups Of Green Tea Best Cancer Defense

Scientists now look at findings, which indicate 5 cups of green tea is the best cancer defense. The studies look at three different types of cancer and the reduction of the incidence of cancer in those that drank five or more cups of green tea every day. They also believe the significantly lower rate has a logical scientific explanation.

Green tea comes from the same leaves as black or oolong tea. The difference between these three types of tea is the amount of processing the leaves experience before they are packaged and ready for you to dip, steep and dunk in your hot water. Green tea has the least amount of processing. It seems amazing that even this century old drink confirms the fact that less is more when it comes to human intervention and processing foods.

Instead of allowing the leaves to ferment and change color, they're immediately steamed, rolled, spread out and then either pan-fried in a wok or dried with a blast of hot air. This leaves the most anti-oxidants in the leaves. The most important of these is the polyphenol catechin, epigallocatechin 3-gallate. If the name is a lot harder to swallow than the green tea, just call it EGCG.

Two studies lead reveal a close relationship to the consumption of 5 or more cups of natures healing nectar and lower rates of blood cancer, lymph node cancer and bile duct cancer. One study from the Tohoku School of Medicine in Japan tracked the food and drink consumption of almost 42,000 men and women of that country. While few things varied in eating pattern and liquid consumption of the participants over the nine-year study period, one difference was apparent when comparing those that eventually developed cancer and the cancer free population of the study. Since the study took place in Japan, where tea reigns over coffee, it was no surprise that all participants drank at least one cup of tea every day. Those cancer free participants went a step farther and drank at least five cups or more.

The second study followed 2623 participants consumption of tea. In the group, 627 of the participants had bile tract cancer, 959 were simply a control group and 1037 people were plagued with bile stones. Their findings were quite interesting. The female tea drinkers, ones that consumed at least a cup of tea each day in a six month period, had a 44 percent reduced risk of gallbladder cancer, a 35 percent reduction in bile duct cancer and a 27 percent reduced chance of bile stones. The male tea drinkers showed no significant difference from their tea-free counterparts.

These two studies are just a small amount of research showing the benefits of consuming green tea. Other studies on the benevolent beverage show that it protects the body in a myriad of other ways. It's particularly effective in preventing periodontal disease, increasing bone density thus preventing osteoporosis, decreases cardiovascular disease, prevents damage to brain cells from strokes of Parkinson's, prevents cognitive decline from diseases such as Alzheimer's, protects the body from both bacterial and viral infections, promotes improved cardiovascular health, promotes weight loss and even increases your exercise endurance. For those that imbibe in alcoholic beverages, green tea helped prevent liver damage in lab rats that scientists intentionally forced into a 4-week bender where they remained chronically intoxicated. Does this mean we'll soon be seeing alcoholic delights like green tea martini's or rum and green tea?