14 DAY TRIAL // In a new set of investigations, scientists demonstrated that brewing tea is a lot healthier than consuming the bottled variety, in spite of the fact that the latter boasts high concentrations of antioxidants.
After the scientists analyzed the two types of teas, they determined that the most elevated concentrations could be found in beverages made at home via infusion.
It was additionally discovered that certain types of bottled tea contain so few antioxidants, that an average person would need to consume about 20 bottles, in order to get the same quantity of the precious chemicals found in a single cup of home-brewed tea.
“There is a huge gap between the perception that tea consumption is healthy and the actual amount of the healthful nutrients – polyphenols – found in bottled tea beverages,” says expert Shiming Li.
“Our analysis of tea beverages found that the polyphenol content is extremely low,” adds Li, who was a researcher on the new investigation.
He holds an appointment as an analytical and natural product chemist at the North Brunswick, New Jersey-based biotechnology company WellGen, Inc.
The organization is involved with developing so-called medical foods, addressed to patients suffering from a large number of medical disorders.
One of their products is a type of black tea that its creators believe can successfully fight inflammation.
An additional discovery the team made was the fact that bottled tea also contains large amounts of sugar, which some of the people interested in drinking tea for its health benefits may be trying to avoid.
When brewing their tea at home, health-conscious people can opt not to add sugar to their beverage. They lose this option when buying their tea already bottled.
The new discoveries were presented yesterday, August 22, in Boston, at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), LiveScience reports.
“Polyphenols are bitter and astringent, but to target as many consumers as they can, manufacturers want to keep the bitterness and astringency at a minimum,” Li says.
“The simplest way is to add less tea, which makes the tea polyphenol content low but tastes smoother and sweeter,” the expert adds.
He concludes by saying that a normal, 2.2-gram tea bag contains, on average, as much as 175 milligrams of polyphenols, whereas bottled tea contains a lot less.