My wife is a big coffee drinker and I am a big green tea drinker. I have tried to pursuade her to drink green tea, but there is something “medicinal” about her trips to Starbucks that keeps her from totally adopting green tea and stop drinking coffee.
Drinking coffee has become such a habit for her that even though there is considerable green tea health information that suggests she should drink green tea instead of coffee, I suspect that it will be a number of years before she starts drinking green tea and eliminates coffee from her diet.
Green tea ( China Green Tea / Japan Green Tea ) is an amazing drink. As I have mentioned several times, it is full of flavonoids, which give green tea its health benefits. These flavnoids, called polyphenols, are antioxidants. A subgroup of these antioxidants, called catechins, are abundant in green tea. One catechin in particular, epigallocatechin gallate (EGCg), is found only in tea and one of the most powerful antioxidants ever found. They are 20 times stronger than Vitamin E.
Coffee is a questionable drink. It has a considerable amount of caffeine that certainly can keep you awake, but too much caffeine is not good. In an 8 oz cup, coffee can have about 100 mg of caffeine where green tea only has about 20 mg of caffeine. The FDA suggests you keep from having any more than 200 - 300 mg of caffeine per day, depending on what report you find. Two cups of coffee gets you to that limit where as several cups of green tea still keeps you far from the limit and gives you a whole bunch of health benefits not in coffee.
And have you seen all the green tea health information. Here is just a short list of the green tea health benefits according to various studies:
- EGCG in green tea blocks the mutation of cells, reducing cell damage; blocks tumor growth; and blocks the liver enzymes that convert pro-carcinogens (i.e., harmless substances in the body that can turn into cancer agents) into carcinogens.
- EGCG is green tea blocks enzymes that cause cancer cells to grow and it can destroy cancer cells with damaging surrounding healthy cells. Scientists also revealed that this effect is 10 to 100 times more potent in green tea than in black tea.
- Tea increases the blood's antioxidant capacity.
- Based on animal studies, tea may reduce the risk of lung cancer.
- EGCG kills cancer cells and, in particular, inhibits prostate cancer cells.
- Green tea has been shown to reduce damage to blood vessels in smokers.
- Green tea's polyphenols can boost white blood cells, and might be an effective supplement to chemotherapy and radiation treatments that impact bone marrow and lower white blood cell count.
- Men who drank two to three cups of tea a day reduced their risk of prostate cancer.
- Women who had a history of drinking five or more cups of green tea a day had fewer occurances of breast cancer and slower spread of the disease.
Now the key, in my humble opinion, is to drink quality green tea regularly for these health benefits. In particular, you want to purchase green tea that is made of the first two leaves and a bud. This is where most of the catechins are located and where green tea gets is main health benefits.
Notice that most of the health benefits of tea mentioned above talk about green tea's benefits as opposed to oolong, pu-erh, or black tea. That is because green tea is far more healthier than black tea. Although all tea comes from the same plant, the oxidation process that oolong, pu-erh, and black tea go through destroys much of the health benefits. Green tea, which is not oxidized, is the healthiest of all teas with perhaps the exception of white tea in many ways. However, quality white tea can be very expensive and is very bitter in my opinion. White tea is definitely an acquired taste.
I suggest try some quality green tea in your diet and make it a regular daily drink. Focus on a green tea like Japanese Sencha or Dragon Well Lung Ching. Choose a higher quality grade for the health benefits and don't make the mistake of adding too many leaves. Also drink multiple infusions, which you can do in higher grades of green tea. You will find that a good quality green tea can go a long way and is not very expensive when you look at the per cup price.
Check out my online green tea store, which my wife and I just started. We are very excited about passing on good quality green tea at affordable prices. Good health to you.