Green Tea

Where I come from long long time ago (China), everyone has a tea cup in their hand with green tea leaves in it. The hot water is in thermal bottles not far way from them. Everywhere you go, the bus station, the train station, the gas station all provide hot water.

I have a cousin, who told me that he spends about 600 us dollars a year in tea for a country that a lot of people's yearly income is only that. He values tea a lot, for a good reason.



The recent study shows that one of the beneficial compounds found in green tea has a powerful ability to increase the number of “regulatory T cells” that play a key role in immune function and suppression of autoimmune disease. The compound is a polyphenol called EGCG, which is believed to be responsible for much of its health benefits and has both anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer characteristics.

There are many types of cells that have different roles in the immune system, which is a delicate balancing act of attacking unwanted invaders without damaging normal cells. In autoimmune diseases, which can range from simple allergies to juvenile diabetes or even terminal conditions such as Lou Gehrig’s disease, this process goes awry and the body mistakenly attacks itself.

Regulatory T cells suppress activation of the immune system and thereby maintain immune system homeostasis and tolerance to self-antigens.

Unfortunately, on this side of the world, tea drinking was a fad that has waned down drastically. If you have to boil water every time to make one cup of tea, you are not going to drink tea all day long. You walk into any regular Chinese family, usually they have 2-3 thermal bottles containing 3 liters of boiled hot water each ready to serve you tea. Drinking tea all day long has double benefits. One is from polyphenol and another one from water. Drinking 8 cups of tea a day, your intake of water is about 2 liters, in addition to the water contained in food, you shall have adequate water to function properly.