Benefits of drinking green tea

The trend of drinking green tea has been on the rise for many years now, and up until fairly recently, many were unsure of the actual benefits of drinking green tea over other beverages. We’re here to give you a little insight to some of the benefits you can expect to experience when you start drinking green tea on a frequent basis. First off though, have you ever wondered what is so different about green tea to other forms of tea?

What is green tea?

Green tea is a type of tealeaf that comes from the same plant as black tea, Camellia sinensis, and originated between Japan and China. The reason that green tea has so many health benefits is that the process it goes through is very different to that of oolong or black tea, with more delicate processing methods used as the leaves are steamed rather than fermented. This means that the green tea has a larger concentration of the beneficial antioxidants. Unlike black tea, green tea is not commonly consumed with the addition of milk or sugar, bringing the calorie count to less than 1 calorie per 100ml; some say that the benefits received from consuming quantities of green tea mean that it is actually a ‘negative calorie food’. Essentially this means that it burns more calories than it holds. Green tea is known as a superfood, containing B vitamins, folate, manganese, potassium, caffeine and other antioxidants that are beneficial to the body.

Now onto the benefits of drinking green tea, some of which you may not have known about!

Weight loss

If you are trying to lose a little bit of weight, then you may find that adding 6-8 cups of green tea to your daily habits aid your efforts. Studies have shown that it helps to reduce the amount of fat stored in your body, particularly around the abdominal area by mobilizing the fat from fat cells through fat burning hormones. This is not to say that drinking green tea alone will make you lose weight, but it will certainly act as a catalyst to the overall process. One reason behind this is that green tea contains a range of antioxidants called catechins, one of these being the EGCG (Epigallocatechin gallate) which is an polyphenol that is known to give your metabolism a boost; another is because of the small amount of caffeine stimulants within the tea that fuel your body on, particularly during exercise. Some studies have even shown that drinking green tea can help you to burn extra calories, even when you’re resting by up to 8%! So if you’re trying to skim off a few pounds, maybe green tea is the way forward!

De-stressing

If you find yourself in a stressful situation or with feelings of anxiety, green tea could again help. The theanines in green tea can help to reduce these feelings. This is again largely due to the antioxidants within the tea helping to calm your body and to release the toxins. In fact, it is thought that drinking five or more cups of green tea a day can reduce your psychological stress by up to 20%. With recent studies showing that psychological stress is one of the most common, and often neglected symptom that leads to further mental issues or disorders, the use of green tea to help reduce this could be a great help to the health systems; particularly as a preventative measure. Preventatives are certainly better than cures!

Cholesterol

Drinking green tea, or taking green tea capsules can be one of the best natural ways to reduce your cholesterol. The polyphenols can help to both prevent cholesterol absorption, as well as helping to remove it from the body. These benefits have been seen in those drinking just one cup of green tea per day for just 20 weeks! This has been such a breakthrough for health that it is now being recommended by health practitioners in both the UK and further afield to help to improve the levels of those suffering from bad cholesterol as well as high blood pressure, as a cost effective and simple aid.

Digestion

Those antioxidants in green tea have done it again, helping your digestion process to run smoothly and efficiently, as well as helping with symptoms of both Crohn’s Disease and colitis. This has been used in countries such as China, India and Japan for hundreds of years to help improve digestive health, and we can understand why! Researchers have concluded that some of the tea catechins can slow down the way digestive enzymes work, meaning that the intestines do not absorb so many calories. This means that they work harder to digest the nutritious items that pass through, and let a larger majority of the not-so-nutritious items pass through the system untouched, meaning that less weight will be gained and the digestion process is more efficient.

These are just a handful of the benefits that can be seen from adding Japanese tea to your daily diet, especially green tea; these come in a wide range of exotic flavours that can be explored in our online store! Once you start on your green tea journey, you will realise that the delicious taste makes all these health benefits even more worthwhile!