What Is There About Tea?

As a drink dating back to an early Chinese emperor about 2700 B.C., tea has a long and varied history. It is older than coffee and about the same age, maybe a tad younger, than beer. As wine now dates back to the Neolithic era due to fairly recent research, it has tea beat hands down as the oldest beverage. However, tea has been around for a long time.

In addition to being old, tea is a very popular product. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the yield in 2006 was about 3.6 million tonnes. When you consider it takes only about two grams of tea to make a cup of tea, you can see we are swimming in it.

Do you need to worry about the caffeine in your tea? Most teas have less than coffee but it does still contain caffeine and varies from about 8 to 110 mg per cup. As you can see that is a wide range. Where your cup of tea will fall depends upon mostly the type of tea and how long it is steeped.

Vitamins, minerals, flavonoids, and polyphenols are among the benefits you get from drinking a cup of tea. These help fight off the effects of our daily lives by getting rid of free radicals and also boost our bodies' defenses. Some studies show positive effects in preventing cancer and warding off the dreaded disease Alzheimer's. All from drinking a simple cup of what I would argue is the world's favorite drink.

Certainly most people don't care about all the many benefits to tea, even if that is why they first started to drink it. After a time, it simply becomes a way of life because it is simply a wonderful beverage. There are so many wonderful types of tea and if you add in herbal teas, or tisanes, the varieties are almost endless.

Tea drinking has been the focus for several social ceremonies and social commentaries over the years. The Japanese tea ceremony and the English afternoon tea are two examples of the social events that have arisen from the drinking of tea, though one could argue strongly that the Japanese tea ceremony is a spiritual ceremony that involves many aspects of Japanese life.

All around the world, one thing many people can agree upon is the cup of tea as a part of daily life. Whether it's a glass of iced sweet tea in the southern United States, a cup of Darjeeling from India, or Pu-erh from China, tea makes the world go round. Regardless of philosophy or politics, tea is something we can agree upon even if we might not agree upon the type.

In the end, as the billion plus drinkers of tea around the world know, whether it is served from a clay pot or in a glass cup, tea is irresistible. So brew up your favorite flavor, enjoy the health benefits and drink a cuppa tonight.