Tea is the most widely drunk drink in the World after water, and so is nutritionally highly important. The association between tea consumption and protection from certain diseases has been well reported. In particular, tea drinkers show a reduced risk of developing a number of Western lifestyle diseases including cancer, cardiovascular disease and obesity. Animal and human studies support a role for tea in health, and a number of well designed studies have shown that tea favourably affects biomarkers that could explain the association between tea drinking and health. It is not fully understood why tea is so beneficial to the health, but these effects may relate to the high concentration of antioxidants tea contains. Both black and green tea contain antioxidants, although their type and ratios differ significantly. While green tea has received the majority of the attention in the mainstream press, black tea has been shown to possess similar health benefits despite its slightly different composition.
The main antioxidants in green tea are the catechins. However the catechin content of black tea is much lower and the catechins become oxidised and condensed during the fermentation process that produces the black tea. Whilst green tea is not consumed with milk, black tea is, and it has been suggested that this may affect the absorption of the catechins from the tea. However studies that have investigated the effect of milk of catechin absorption have shown that milk has little effect when consumed with black tea. For example, in one study1, researchers investigated the absorption of catechins from green tea, black tea and black tea with semi skimmed milk, each providing 3 grams of solids. The total catechins from the green tea was 0.9 grams, whilst it was 0.3 grams from the black tea. Catchin concentrations increased more following consumption of green compared to black tea with peak values being reached after roughly 2.5 hours. However, the addition of milk to the black tea did not affect catechin absorption.
RdB
