In the past few weeks, our tea blog has been focusing on the topic of white tea. If you haven’t read them, we highly recommend that you check them out. Some of our wonderful readers messaged us on social media asking for the specific health benefits of white tea. Today, let’ us continue our journey and talk about the health value of white tea.
In traditional Chinese mythologies, Shen Nong (Chinese: 神农, the literal meaning: magical or legendary farmer) is an important figure. In old tales, Shen Nong was the first person who sampled, tasted and determined all eatable plants. During his marvelous journey of trying all the plants, Shen Nong unavoidably suffered from severe food poisoning. In the story, it was tea that helped detoxicate Shen Nong. Of course, whether Shen Nong really existed is a mystery, and so is the story about Shen Nong. However, the very first purpose of tea was for the medical use. During the long history of cultivating tea, people developed more sophisticated understanding of tea and its benefits.
In one of our previous blogs, we introduced the concept of “the nature of tea”. Unfermented teas, such as white tea and green tea, are colder in nature. That’s why white tea is ideal for the summer time because it can relieve symptoms of heat strokes or food poisoning. White tea has not only all the common nutritions in most teas, such as tea polyphenols and natural caffeine, but also higher content of active enzymes, amino acids, provitamin A, antioxidants and flavonoids. Active enzymes in white tea can accelerate the breakdown of fats and prolong the intestinal glucose absorption that leads to a more balanced blood sugar. White tea also has the highest content of amino acids among all teas. Amino acids are key to a stronger immune system. Finally, natural flavonoids in white tea are great for alleviating a hangover.
Historically, white tea’s medical use is well documented. In the book Journey of Fujian, Mr. Liang-Gong Zhou (1612-1672) wrote “Silver Needle, a native tea from Mount Tai’mu, is a saint medicine for curing measles.” Because white tea producing areas are close to seaports, white tea is always a major exporting tea. This is also why in hot, humid southeast Asia, white tea was also famous for treating measles.
Finally, we’d like to add that this is not a professional health blog. We do not suggest that drinking white tea alone can help you lose weight or get healthier. Drinking tea is one of the many aspects of people’s diet. A healthier lifestyle is more crucial to than eating just one healthy food. Tea, not matter how great it is, is not a magical drug that can solve everything. Some of our customers drink tea for one or two specific goals, like lowering blood sugar. While we think drinking tea can help in a way, we believe that learning more about tea and tea culture ultimately leads to a better and healthier lifestyle, which is the fundamental element of a healthy life.
We hope you enjoyed today’s blog. As always, if you have any questions or suggestions, please leave a comment, tweet us @valleybrooktea or email us at contact@valleybrooktea.com. Please also follow us on Instagram @valleybrooktea and join our mail list to get our daily tea updates and our latest promotions! Finally, If you are interested in ordering some white tea, don’t forget we have a white tea sale for the entire month of June! Use code: whitetea186 and get a 10% off on all white tea products!