Wonderful & strange facts from the world of tea: Tea Facts - 3

Flavonoids & Polyphenols

Tea contains health-promoting flavonoids & polyphenols.

Flavonoids protect human cells from oxidative stress, a negative metabolic state, and have an anti-inflammatory effect. The longer you let your tea brew (don't overdo it :) ), the more flavonoids it contains!

Polyphenols are rich in antioxidants and thus also have anti-inflammatory benefits - green tea is said to contain the most polyphenols.

Milk in tea

Some people (often the British) tend to add milk to black tea. Most people think that, like adding sugar, this is mainly for flavour.

However, in Britain, milk was originally added to black tea to prevent the porcelain cups from cracking. It is said that when tea was imported to Britain in the 18th century, the traditional porcelain dishes often could not cope with the sudden heat of the tea, so milk was added first to cool the tea. It is also believed that adding milk to tea became so popular because tea was very expensive, that most people filled their cups with cheap milk and only added a dash of valuable tea.

Incidentally, a strong cup of rich black tea with milk is known in Britain as 'Builder's Tea'.

Ancient Tea Traditions

The oldest tea leaves in the world can be found in China and are well over 2,000 years old. Remains of tea leaves were found in the mausoleum of the Jing Emperor Liu Qi. The tea found in the emperor's tomb has been described by archaeologists as being of "very high quality" and shows that tea traditions date back to before 141 BC. AD, when he died.