Since time immemorial, it has been an established fact that tea is a beverage that promotes good health. And this is because tea does have a very wide assortment of benefits that any avid drinker can enjoy!

But what is in this particular beverage that gives it the edge when it comes to health? Firstly, let us take a look at the components of tea a bit closer. Tea is laden with antioxidants, which include catechins and ECGC. These antioxidants are very helpful because they actually help get rid of free radicals in our system. These free radicals are byproducts of the bodily processes. The presence of such byproducts can cause damage to one’s body, especially when they have been accumulated over time already. Antioxidants actually have a hand in getting rid of these free radicals, by flushing them out of the system. In this alone, you can already imagine just how beneficial it would be drinking tea.

Studies have also shown how drinking roughly four to five cups of tea a day can reduce the risk of contracting a lot of fatal illnesses. These illnesses include stroke, heart disease, and even cancer. This can then be the reason behind the beverage being the second most sought after drink, next to water, of course. The beverage was even enjoyed by the lot of people worldwide way before the modern era started!

However, there are times when the tea you’re drinking is not really tea in its most genuine sense. This is not something all tea drinkers today are even aware of! For tea to be at its most genuine, the drink itself has to be infused from one or more parts of the plant. This part is usually the leaves of the plant, of course. The tea plant, in this equation, is known as Camellia sinensis. What is known as Red Tea in America is not genuine tea, much to the surprise of a lot of tea drinkers all over the West! In fact, this is merely a brew produced from Rooibos plants, which can be found in South Africa.

There are actually four types of genuine tea, which include white, green, black, and ooling. Fermentation is the key to determining the type of tea produced. You see, plant leaves start wilting and oxidizing within just a few hours. When oxidization stops, this is the point in time when the type of tea would be determined. Another term for fermentation is enzymatic oxidation. Now, this is the more formal term for the process. The tea leaves actually become darker the longer the process takes place. Steaming and dry cooking are effective in stopping enzymatic oxidation.

White tea is the least processed of all types because oxidation is stopped immediately after picking. Because of this, white tea actually retains much of the catechins the leaves come with. Its natural caffeine properties are also retained.

Green tea, on the other hand, experiences slight oxidation, and has been used as traditional medicine in the East for years now. Green tea is known to raise a person’s rate of metabolism, as well as treat neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson’s.

Oolong tea is actually named after certain legends on the tea leaves themselves. The word oolong literally means black dragon. This type of tea receives semi-oxidation, with its fermentation level at roughly 10% to 70%. The Chinese actually refer to this as blue-green tea.

Lastly, the type of tea that receives full oxidation is black tea. The fermentation process that occurs for this type of tea is for roughly around two weeks and a month. When this type of tea is properly processed and stored, they can be kept for two years. To classify black tea, it is actually the production method that influences this. These are classified as either orthodox or CTC, otherwise known as the Crush, Tear, Curl method.