Green Tea vs. White

Black tea is also from the tea plant, but it’s been processed, so green is better. But, there are two types of green tea; that is, two types of unprocessed leaves of the tea plant: tea from mature leaves, known as green tea, and tea from young leaves, known as white tea—because of the little white hairs on the immature leaves. Which is healthier?

It turns out it depends on whether you add lemon or not. If you drink your tea without lemon, green appears preferable to white, but if you add lemon, the white tea jumps ahead. It turns out while there may be more phytonutrients in the white tea, they may only be released at the right pH. Regardless of which tea you drink, though, adding lemon boosts the nutrition.

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.

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• Green RJ, Murphy AS, Schulz B, Watkins BA, Ferruzzi MG. Common tea formulations modulate in vitro digestive recovery of green tea catechins. Mol Nutr Food Res. 2007 Sep;51(9):1152-62.

• beverages
• black tea
• green tea
• lemons
• processed foods
• tea
• white tea