Legendary of Tea

Are you tea lovers? Are you having tea for breakfast? Could tea release stress or get me relaxing?

We maybe questioning all facts about tea. So, let's peel it off.

Tea is mostly people's favorite beverage after water, isn't it? There are about 250,000 people consuming tea in Indonesia, and it increases every years. Why people tend to consuming tea in their days? Of course it's all about the components for their healths. What components are there? Yep, one of the biggest and the most important component is polyphenol. Polyphenol is an antioxidant substance which is beneficial for our healths.

What are the benefits consuming tea and the components in tea?

Tea helps burning fats: Tea contains caffeine, L-Theanine, and Epigallocathecin-3-gallate (EGCG).

-Caffeine is a stimulant which helps to reduce weights. 

-L-Theanine affects neotransmitter in brains whcih affects the dopamine and serotonine content. They give signal 'full' to our brains.

-ECGC substance could reduce triglyceride content in blood also inhibit the accumulation of fatty acid, so it could break fat faster and more effective.

Tea is a freshener: Caffeine could loss sleepiness and tiredness, also increasing heart beats and stimulate nerve systems. So, caffeine will produce adrenaline hormones which will increase energy in our bodies. Well, it makes our bodies feeling so fresh.

Tea helps reduce cancer risk: Cathecin plays the role on this. Cathecin gives bitter and astringent (sepat) taste on tea. The derivates of cathecin, EGCG has the strongest antioxidant activity, 100x higher than the strength of vitamin C antioxidant, also 25x more effective than vitamin E. So, it is helpful to prevent free radical to get in to our bodies.

But, are there any negative effects on consuming tea?

Yes, of course. Consuming everything's over is not good for our healths. So does consuming tea. Consuming tea overly will make the ache of stomach for some of people due to the caffeine content in tea, especially the high dense of the tea will make the ache of stomach. Nah, more dangerous is when you consume tea while your stomach is empty. It's better when consuming tea after meals or snacks.

Another component is tannin. High content of tannin in tea will adsorb any nutrients there, like proteins and vitamins. Tannin also got a binding properties on minerals in our bodies. What kind of minerals? It's like Ca (Calcium) and Fe (Ferrum). 

Warning!

• If you wanna add some milk in tea, you'd better think twice because tannin in tea will decrease the bioavailablity of milk nutrients. So, it will make harder to digest.

• Don't ever take any medicines with tea. The Fe in drugs will be inhibit by the tannin in tea. So, it will inhibit the absorption of the medicines for our bodies. The component in the medicines won't be the same and it will decrease its effectivity for our bodies.

Brewing tea for its perfection, it could be hot or iced. How to make it good and won't ruin the  important components in tea?

Soothing a Hot Tea:

1. Take a spoonful of loose tea or a tea bag per cup (five to eight ounces) of water. Use hot water about 80-90°C (don't use a boiling water or temperature water above 100°C. Boiling water will make the damage of antioxidant and the temperature above 100°C will degrade the polyphenols, so the antioxidants will decrease)
2. Steep for 3-5 minutes
3. Add some water if you feel the tea is too strong*)

and for Cold Refreshing Tea is proceed as a hot tea in a cup and pour over ice.

*) Optional steps

Overall, people who drink three cups a day appear to have a 37% lower risk of depression than those who do not drink tea. Will you start drinking tea from now?☕️

You can't buy happiness, but you can buy tea. And that's kind of the same thing - Unknown