Cold Steeping Green Tea
Surprising new data on what may be the healthiest way to prepare tea.
Topics
Supplementary Info
Cold Steeping Green Tea,
Sources Cited
Acknowledgements
Image thanks to Brandon Heyer.
Transcript
What’s the healthiest way to prepare green tea? Recently in Taiwan, a new trend has arisen of cold steeping tea. Not like ice tea where you make it hot then cool it down, but you start with cold water throw the tea in, put it in the fridge for two hours, or just leave it at room temp. Supposed to have less caffeine, reduced bitterness—and I’m sure it does, but cold water probably also doesn’t draw out many of the antioxidants either. I mean that’s the whole point of brewing tea with hot water, right? To extract all the nutrition. We shouldn’t just presume, though, and so scientists in Italy took it upon themselves to compare the antioxidant activity of hot versus cold steeped tea.
Here’s the data for hot-brewed tea. This is measuring the lag time before cholesterol oxidizes. You mix LDL—bad cholesterol, with an oxidizing agent, like copper in this case, and it takes about 28 minutes to oxidize, but you add tea and the antioxidants slow down the oxidation and increase the lag time—that’s a good thing, and as you can see oolong tea is better than black, green is better than oolong, and white is the best overall.
But this is the antioxidant activity for hot brewed tea. In a surprise upset, Cold steeped tea was even better. Significantly better. So much so that cold steeped black may even be healthier than hot brewed white.
Why? Well, the only thing they could think of is that hot water is so hot that it destroys some of the cat-a-kins, the antioxidants in tea. So I no longer brew my tea—I just throw it in cold water. Saves time, saves energy, and we now know it’s even healthier!
To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by veganmontreal.
To help out on the site please email volunteer@nutritionfacts.org
Doctor's Note
For more context, check out my associated blog posts: Is Caffeinated Tea Really Dehydrating?, Hibiscus tea: flower power, and NutritionFacts.org: the first month.
-
Padraig
-
se34
-
se34
-
http://www.facebook.com/alexandre.amirizian Alexandre Amirizian
Next Video
Previous Video
-
Asian Paradox
Why do people living in Asia have lower heart disease and lung cancer rates than would be expected given their level of smoking?
Watch Now
Related Reading
-
Is Caffeinated Tea Really Dehydrating?Phytonutrients exclusive to the tea plant appear so powerful that they can reverse disease even when.. -
Hibiscus tea: flower powerIn Friday’s NutritionFacts.org video-of-the-day Better Than Green Tea? I compare the antioxidant.. -
The Anti-Wrinkle DietThe skin is the largest organ in the body—about 20 square feet—and the most vulnerable organ in the.. -
Amla: Indian gooseberries vs. cancer, diabetes, and cholesterolI’m out on the road speaking so much that I’m always on the lookout for handy, healthy.. -
NutritionFacts.org: the first monthNutritionFacts.org is the first non-commercial, science-based website to provide daily updates on..