Herbal tea, also known as "Tisanes"
Tea, is essentially the product of boiling water and any number of dried fruits,
flowers or herbs, as opposed to the traditional caffinated tea plant. Herbal
teas are often claimed to have medicinal benefits and quite often fall under
"home remedy" or folk medicine categories.
Why Herbal Tea?
by Gary Whittaker
I get that question a lot. I don't know what started me to get on green tea.
I can say that I was a heavy drinker of a milked up sugary version of orange
pekoe from Red Rose. I would drink about 2 mug fulls almost everyday. I had
tried herbal teas before, when they came as part of a dinner package from one
of the many local Chinese buffets, but I can't say that I had any test for it.
Now, I started this project almost 4 weeks ago, and to be honest, I had a head
start on the herbal tea drinking. My wife had gotten into it about a year ago,
so we always had a few bags around. I started looking it the benefits since
I was worried about my diet with my high cholesterol results. I wanted any advantage
I could get, since I just loved butter and eggs too much to give it up. While
I had some chamomile tea at home already, I decided to start with Green Tea.
I had some and didn't mind it too much in the past, and wanted something that
I could drink without sugar. Checking around on the Internet, I had found that
green tea can help with the following: cancer, arthritis, lower cholesterol,
cardiovascular disease, infection, and improve your immune system. Other benefits
include helping to burn calories and reduce tooth decay. While the amount of
green tea that needs to be consumed in order to capatise on those benefits seem
to vary from specialist to specialist, it is around 3-4 cups per day.
see more here:
http://chinesefood.about.com/library/weekly/aa011400a.htm
Next was black tea. I like variety and didn't want to just be stuck drinking
the highly tannic green the rest of my life, so I started looking into the benefits
of black tea. I found that black tea also can reduce the risk of stroke or heart
attack and coronary heart disease. It can also lower bad cholesterol but like
Green Tea, only if consumed approx 4 cups a day. Black tea is also found to
have trace amounts of various nutrients such as the amino acid theanine; the
minerals calcium, magnesium, manganese and potassium; and the vitamins C and
K. I really like a Vanilla flavored black tea, as it helps to add a little variety
to make it to 4 cups a day.
http://chinesefood.about.com/library/weekly/aa021103a.htm
While in Disney, I happened to try some red, or Rooibos tea and found that I
really liked it. I had started to get used to be able to actually taste the
different flavors in tea, and enjoy them. I also happened to like the fact that
Red Tea is actually African.
http://www.webmd.com/content/article/14/1671_52295.htm
http://www.biomed.cas.cz/physiolres/pdf/2003/52_461.pdf
I am now starting to look into White tea. From what I have read, white tea seems
to have all the same benefits as green tea, but in higher concentration. I have
not had the chance to drink any yet, and am looking forward to it. Here is a
good article I found:
http://www.asm.org/Media/index.asp?bid=27462
and
http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/newsarch/2003/Mar03/tea.htm
Tea is gaining in popularity, as the health industry has moved beyond Richard
Simmons and into the mainstream, and with so many varieties, it is sure to bring
out the connoisseur in all of us.
About the Author
Gary Whittaker is the subject of
www.projectgary.com,
a blog that chronicles his struggle to lose 100 pounds, 20 pounds at a time
