How tea can help everyone's health and why you should keep drinking it!
- Harvey Cocks
- May 8, 2020
- 4 min read
Updated: Jun 1, 2020
Tea is a very popular beverage, in fact it is the second most drunk beverage in the entire world, just below water at number 1 and coffee with being number 3. But why is it so popular around the world, why do people associate tea to be a calming beverage and most importantly why is it that you hear people online saying you should drink it more?
In this blog post, I am going to talk about and answer all of the above, as well as talking more about how tea, not only is a tasty and delicious beverage but also an incredibly healthy and life-changing beverage that is glorious for your physical and mental health.
Let us begin with by talking about why tea is so popular around the world, but before we can answer this question we need to understand when tea became popular and was drunk. At the very beginning tea goes all the way to the 3rd century AD, where records were shown to suggest tea was used as a medical drink to help aid people during the "Shang dynasty" in southwest China. From then onwards it became to become a more popular drink during the Chinese Tang dynasty and then began to spread to other east Asian countries over time with Portuguese priests introducing it towards Europe around the time of the 16th century.
Bringing time back up to nowadays, tea has and will always be relevant in modern-day life in most countries around the world. Although tea might be underestimated in some countries in Europe or the American region as coffee exists to be a more popular choice, tea will and still has a huge community around it globally and grows each day as more kinds of teas are being made and blended together. You will find in the most popular city's in most countries various tea shops everywhere or dedicated tea-houses for people to come in and have a drink as well as buying some teas.
But coming back to the main question, why is tea so popular? Firstly, because it's begun so early as a beverage in the history of the world. Secondly, it is a tasty beverage to put it simply. Most people enjoy drinking tea because it is apart of everyone's daily ritual to drink something pleasurable to boost their day as its something they enjoy the taste of. Finally, one of the main reasons as well would be down to the fact that tea is scientifically healthy for your body and has been since the start. Some people drink it to help when they are sick as the polyphenols and catechins found within most teas helps to boost our immune systems, whilst the balance of caffeine can help some people in trying to be more alert, awake and focused.
In fact a recent study according to the National University of Singapore, tea has the potential to help improve brain health and cognitive function in doing daily things in life. A study was conducted by Professor Feng Lei to recruit 36 adults aged 60 and above to study their data about each individuals health, lifestyle and psychological before running any tests. The test was to give each participant some green, oolong and black tea to drink for at least 4 days a week. The results came to a conclusion that the cognitive performance in different brain regions were performing above average and more efficiently. So not only is drinking tea a tasty beverage to have but it's also very good for your mental health and cognitive behaviour. (Link will be posted below to read more about this.)
Now let's talk about why some people associate tea to be a calming beverage to drink. To begin with, tea, in general, is quite a calming drink for people because a hot drink usually helps you feel warm inside and cosy. On top of this tea, in general, is quite refreshing as a whole, because of the fact that it's a light beverage in terms of its taste compared to other hot drinks like hot chocolate or coffee, it helps not create a strong sensation and flavour in your mouth making you feel cleansed and refreshed. Think about this, when was the last time you drank a cup of tea? Sitting in the living room? Watching TV? Reading a book? Most of the time we drink tea when we are relaxing down or trying to do something we enjoy, so mentally the connection established with drinking tea is associated to things that make us feel better and relaxed.
So you may sometimes see online tons of articles or blog posts suggesting you should drink tea (like this one), and this is for a good reason. Because not only is tea a tasty and delicious drink, but it is both mentally and physically healthy as we have learnt today. As we were talking earlier about how drinking tea whether it be black, oolong, green or whatever the kind has great benefits for our mental health, on top of this it also physically is a healthy beverage to drink. This is due to the fact that all of the chemical compounds that are naturally found within all teas are good for our human bodies, furthermore as mentioned earlier these compounds not only make us feel in general better, but also support our immune system to help fight diseases or infections, hence why tea was a medicinal beverage years ago!
Overall to sum up why you should be drinking tea:
.It is healthy for you both mentally and physically
.It is a tasty and delicious drink
.It has chemical compounds in it that help refresh your mind and keep your body healthy
.It comes in all different shapes, forms and types
So now you know why tea is so popular, how healthy it is for you and why you should add tea into your daily life. Don't forget that a cuppa a day, can not only make you feel good but can mentally help you.
Sources:
-University of Singapore brain health correlation with tea test:
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