White Tea

So I have been drinking tea for a long time but since I didn't use to drink caffeine it was mostly herbal tea packets and nothing special. Last year I started stopping by a tea shop specializing in an amazing array of loose leaf teas and brewing cups and systems. I decided it was fun to have a cup with an individual strainer in it for work.

I had only tried limited herbal and green tea varieties so imagine my surprise when a friend suggested drinking white tea helped loosen her mucous and helped her feel better. I thought she was a bit crazy to be honest. I have tried it myself and I have to say that not only do I like white tea more than green (it's smoother or more bland with less grassy/earthy taste) but that I also noticed that I got up a lot of gunk and felt good when drinking it. The other nice thing, for me, is that I can drink a lot more of it throughout the day without getting 'buzzed' on too much caffeine since it has the lowest caffeine content of all the teas.

I decided to look into the white tea phenomenon a bit since it does truly seem to help me and I found that what we've noticed is what the Chinese have known for eons......tea has a TON great stuff in it for you. White tea is also the highest in polyphenols, antioxidants, etc since it is the youngest and least processed......it also, unfortunately means its the priciest. 


Speaking of caffeine, a common website that does nothing but compare amount of caffeine in beverages had the values listed below as common for varying beverages, I thought it was interesting to see some common beverages for comparison. 

                        mg/oz (Note this is PER ounce not cup)
Decaf Coffee    0.9
white tea           1.9
green tea           3.1
Common Pop    4.5
Iced Tea           5.9
Coffee               13
Espresso           51


Tea is noted to vary widely in the levels of caffeine based on type, variety, brewing etc. The Department of Nutritional Services provide the following ranges for loose leaf tea:

                      mg/oz (Note this is PER ounce not cup)
Black Tea: 2.8-13.8
Oolong Tea: 1.5 - 6.9
Green Tea: 1 - 4.5
White Tea: .8 – 3.1

If you are sensitive to caffeine or avoid it altogether here is a handy hint. About 80% of the caffeine will be extracted within 30 seconds of steeping, you can easily remove most of the caffeine in any tea by steeping for 30 seconds in a 'throw away' cup of hot water then transfer the pre-brewed tea leaves to your cup.

I've only just begun experimenting but I'm impressed. Let me know if any of you give it a try.

Here are some links to sites with cool general info on health benefits of tea: 


http://www.whiteteaguide.com/whiteteahealthbenefits.htm

http://www.whitetea.com/benefits-of-white-tea.php

tea vs superbug & increasing effectiveness of antibiotics
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080330200640.htm

tea increases anti-inflammatory properties in body and decreases pro-inflammatory factor in body
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1476-9255/4/1