Dig This Green Tea Recently

I woke up at 11:00 today in desperate need of caffeine, and the tin which holds my strongest black tea has been empty for the last week, so I grabbed my strongest green tea instead, which has really been habit since the black ran out. It got me thinking about the difference between the four main flavors of tea - white, black, green, oolong - here is what I learned:

These four kinds of tea are from the same plant - Camellia sinensis. The difference is how they are processed. The two major factors are letting the leaves wilt, and letting the leaves oxidize, it breaks down like this:

Green - wilted and unoxidized
Black - wilted and fully oxidized
White - unwilted and unoxidized
Oolong - wilted and partially oxidized

Both the wilting and oxidizing process will happen naturally after the leaves are picked. Wilting happens first and after the leaves have wilted they begin to oxidize. These processes can be stopped by drying the leaves, this means that white teas are dried earlier then other teas, and black teas are dried after the longest amount of time.

The two most commonly consumed teas are green and black, and there has been a good deal of research into the health benefits of tea with green usually beating out black in overall health benefits, because it is less decayed and thus has more of the anti-oxidant found in tea. This means of the major teas white is the healthiest, black should be the least beneficial to your health. However more recent research suggests that the more fermented/wilted/oxidized tea has different health benefits, but some that are equally powerful, because of a substance called Theaflavin & Thearubigins.

So regardless of what kind of tea you choose, take solace that it is doing your body good!

Cheers - Tyler