Tuesday 24 June 2014

White tea benefits

So why drink white tea and what is it anyway?

White tea is made from the young leaves and buds of the tea plant. These have many fine white hairs on them and so appear white. They are harvested and then allowed to wither before drying. They have particular health benefits above the more popular black tea.


Dr Verburgh explains that white tea inhibits proteases. These are the proteins that break down the collagen and elastin in our skin. If we drink white tea, we help to keep our skin elastic, which mean less wrinkles. We also get the benefit of less wrinkles on the inside too, which means we slow down the ageing process of the whole body!


There is an interesting website which explains about the benefits of white tea in more detail. You can see it here:


white tea guide


 The website above talks about the antioxidant benefits of white tea, and how antioxidants protect the body from damage by free radicals. Dr Verburgh however, casts some doubt on the effectiveness of antioxidants in this way. He explains that we need free radicals because they act as an alarm system for the body, which will then produce its own proteins to protect itself. It is not so much the antioxidants in white tea that are healthy, but the flavonoids. These have a mildly toxic effect on the body which in turn stimulates our system to protect itself. Whatever the science behind it, it seems that research agrees that white tea is a very healthy drink.

 The agreed benefits are that it helps:


  • Cancer prevention
  • Maintenance of healthy blood pressure
  • To decrease harmful cholesterol
  • To protect teeth and gums
  • To slow the ageing process of skin
That's an impressive number of benefits from one type of tea!

Just as a complete aside, how fantastic was that last episode of Fargo?  I wouldn't have changed a word of dialogue, it was as near perfect a drama as I can think of. A ten hour film rather than a TV series. I am already looking forward to watching the whole thing again at Christmas on the box set.

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