You probably know that tea has lots of different health benefits. Tea contains almost no calories but will fill up the stomach, so it helps suppress appetite and helps with weight loss. You can also use herbs to go with tea to form herbal teas which provides numerous health benefits. A company named Purify Tea offers customizable tea blends with any herbs to go with tea.
There are many different types of healthy teas available in the world. While they originated from China, tea is now grown all around the world, such as Japan, Thailand, Africa, India, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Black tea and green tea are probably the most popular in the US but there is also white tea, yellow tea, pu erh tea, and oolong tea. Tea can be consumed hot or cold, they can be bottled and preserved, they can mixed with sugar, milk, honey, and other condiments. Teas can be blended with other ingredients such as dry herbs, fruits, and nuts, and with additives and flavoring agents. Teas can be scented with flowers – jasmine green tea is considered the most popular scented tea in the world and is scented with the aroma of fresh jasmine flowers. Tea can sometimes be found as an ingredient in some cooking recipes (Earl Gray cookies are an example). Some teas can also be aged and in fact, aged teas are some of the most expensive teas in the world. The prices for tea varies significantly. Some teas cost only pennies per serving while some can cost over a hundred dollars for a cup.
What is interesting is that all of these different teas actually come from the leaves of the same plant species. The reason that they end up having different flavors and colors is that they differ in how the leaves are processed and treated after they are plucked. This difference in manufacturing process also results in varying caffeine levels – for example, white tea is minimally processed and contains very little caffeine whereas black tea is fermented and contains higher levels of caffeine. It also results in different amounts of chemical compounds which means that some teas may have more antioxidants, for example, and that may affect the purported health benefits they provide. For the casual tea drinker, even though all teas come from the same plant, they are given an endless variety of flavors and aromas to choose from. Just about anyone will be able to find something that suits their particular taste.