"blacktea" news and stories

When I first began to dabble in green tea, I absolutely hated it. It was bitter, drying to the mouth, wretched taste, and I was left for a long time feeling that green tea just wasn't for me. Many people I knew who drank black tea felt the same way, so I concluded that green tea was for the few who had the palette for it.

Of course, this was during a time when the only other tea drinkers I knew were buying Bigelow or Lipton bags and, like myself, just throwing them in some boiling hot water and coming back whenever we remembered to take the bag out, squeezing the bag thoroughly to get the last drops into the cup.

I shudder these days when I think about how badly I was scalding my first attempts at green tea, and I marvel that I enjoyed any tea at all, considering the way in which I was preparing it. This is a predicament many novice tea drinkers find themselves when it comes to anything other than black tea: you're scalding (and probably over-steeping it).

With all the research out there touting the health benefits of tea, it's a wonder that everyone doesn't drink a cup (or two) every day. Now there's one more reason. New research shows that drinking at least one cup of black tea a day reduces the likelihood of getting Parkinson's Disease by 71%.

The researchers specifically used black tea rather than green tea, which is unusual, but I suspect that's because the majority of Britton's(where the research was conducted) drink black tea. The testers don't really know how black tea reduces the risk of Parkinson's, but they think it's due to the antioxidant levels in the beverage. One industry backed researcher said "Tea is one of the strongest dietary antioxidants available."

Of course this is only the beginning and more research is needed. But wouldn't it be great if the scientists get things all figured out, and it turns out that all we have to do is drink tea every day to stave off life threatening conditions later in life? Ah tea, the miracle drink.