Fascinating Health Benefits Of Green Tea 🍵 Fights Cancer & Heart Diseases, Improves Memory & More!

Green Tea has been a popular beverage for thousands of years.
After water, tea is actually the 2nd most consumed beverage in the world!
Not only does it taste delicious, green tea also provides an incredible amount of health benefits, ranging from cancer prevention to diabetes protection to skincare to mental health.

Brief history of Tea

Green Tea has been consumed for thousands of years - it dates back up to 5,000 years in ancient China.
The most popular legend about the invention of tea takes place in 2700 BC. Emperor Shennong, who liked his water boiled before drinking it, was resting on a distant island. A dead leaf from a wild bush fell into his cup of hot water, but it went unnoticed and he started to drink it - and really enjoyed the flavour.

Quickly, Tea became a very important part of the Chinese culture and society.
Then, it also spread in other Asian countries especially Japan, where different types and styles of tea were then created.
Its importance grew so much that tea became subject of government taxation during the thirteenth-fourteenth century in China.

Finally, by the sixteenth century, Westerners (especially Britons) started exporting Tea from Asia and made it a desirable good all over the world.

Health Benefits of drinking Green Tea

Green Tea has been used as medicine for thousands of years in China, and later spread all over Asia.
The most important component of Green Tea is EGCG (epigallocatechin-3-gallate) - a powerful antioxidants.
Antioxidants protect the body against diseases and fight free radicals, lowering the risk for cancer, heart diseases and more.
You might have heard of "superfoods" like Acai or Goji Berries which contain high levels of antioxidants, which is very healthy - well, green tea offers between 2-5 times the amount of antioxidants that can be found naturally in blueberries, acai or goji berries.

Drinking Green Tea regularly has proven to provide the following health benefits:

• Lowers blood pressure
• Increases metabolism
• Lowers cancer risk (especially esophageal cancer)
• Lowers risk for heart diseases
• Anti-inflammatory properties
• Regulates glucose levels
• Prevents atherosclerosis / reduces bad cholesterol
• Dental health: inhibits growth of bacteria, reduces risk of infections

Mental health benefits:

• Improves memory
• Boosts availability of dopamine
• delay of deterioration caused by Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s
• contains Theanine, an amino acid with naturally relaxing and tranquilizing effects
• Calming effect, beneficial for meditation

Green Tea as medicine / external use

• High in antioxidants = anti-aging properties
• Skincare: for eye care, cleansers, toners and masks
• Relieves Acne and Inflammation
• Reduces sun damage

Matcha Green Tea

Matcha is a special Japanese type of green tea in powder form.
Only the finest green tea leaves are being hand-selected and harvested to create matcha powder. After removing the stems and veins, the leaves are then stone ground into a fine, smooth powder.
Matcha is much more intense than green tea - in both colour, taste, potency and nutrients.
It contains up to 10-15x more nutrients and 137x more antioxidants.
Matcha powder is also a key part of traditional Japanese cuisine and can be used in countless desserts, hot and dairy beverages, ice cream, smoothies, shakes and more.

Matcha and caffeine

In terms of caffeine, one cup of matcha tea comes close to around 10 cups of regular green tea!
But the caffeine in matcha is of a different "type" than caffeine from coffee: it provides you with a more stable release of energy throughout 4-6 hours, instead of crashing after a jittery high like you do from coffee.

Do you like Green Tea? How often do you drink it and what is your favorite way to prepare it?

Images: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

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