Tea is a traditional beverage in China with a long history. Through analysis and identification, it has been found that tea contains more than 100 compounds. Many of these compounds are essential nutrients for the human body, such as vitamins, proteins, amino acids, lipids, carbohydrates, and mineral elements, which have high nutritional value. Some of them also have health and medicinal value, such as tea polyphenols, caffeine, and polysaccharides.
As people's understanding of tea deepens, more and more people consider drinking tea as an important part of their daily lives. Tea not only contains rich nutrients but also has a regulating effect on many diseases and physical dysfunctions. Different types of herbal teas also have the effect of beauty care, improving some skin problems, and becoming a good choice for beauty-loving women.
Nowadays, tea has become one of the three major non-alcoholic beverages popular worldwide. More than 50 countries and regions around the world grow and drink tea, embodying tea culture in daily life. Many people have regarded drinking tea as a method for eye protection, weight loss, diuresis, blood pressure reduction, and lipid reduction, and have achieved good results. Compared to medication, tea is safer and more convenient. Therefore, many people have made drinking tea a habit. However, people only have a rough understanding of the effects and benefits of tea. During the process of drinking tea, there are still some misconceptions. Most people believe that the fresher the tea leaves, the better, but this is not entirely correct.
The so-called "new tea" refers to the tea leaves processed from the first few batches of fresh leaves picked from tea trees in the spring of the same year. To ensure their freshness, some tea farmers start picking tea before the Qingming Festival, and such tea is called "pre-Qingming tea". These teas are less affected by pests, with tender buds and leaves, green color, pleasant aroma, mellow taste, and beautiful appearance, making them the best teas. At the same time, due to the low temperature before the Qingming Festival, the number of buds is limited and the growth is slow. The yield that meets the picking standard is very small, so there is a saying that "pre-Qingming tea is as precious as gold". The tea picked before the Rain Water solar term is called "Rain Water tea". Rain Water tea has the characteristics of thin and short leaves, strong aroma, and slightly bitter taste. In fact, the belief that "the fresher the tea leaves, the better" is a misunderstanding. This only applies to general types of tea. Not all tea leaves are better when they are fresher. Pu'er tea and black tea, for example, are better when they are older. On the other hand, green tea is pursued for its freshness, but even green tea does not need to be consumed immediately after being picked.
People's preference for fresh tea leaves is mainly because they believe that fresh food retains more nutrients, but the freshest tea leaves may not be the best in terms of nutrient content. Tea leaves picked less than a month ago have not been left for a period of time, so they contain substances that are harmful to the body. If consumed directly, they can be harmful to the body. For example, polyphenols, alcohols, and aldehydes are not completely oxidized. Drinking new tea for a long time may cause adverse reactions such as diarrhea and bloating.
For patients, tea leaves that are too fresh are even worse, as they can cause new damage to weak bodies and increase the burden on the body. For elderly patients with gastric acid deficiency or chronic gastric ulcers, they are even less suitable for drinking new tea. New tea can stimulate their gastric mucosa, causing gastrointestinal discomfort and even aggravating their condition. New tea contains higher levels of caffeine, active alkaloids, and various aromatic substances, which can easily stimulate the nervous system, causing weakness in limbs, profuse sweating, and insomnia, known as "tea drunkenness". In general, the new tea bought by consumers should be stored for at least half a month before drinking.
"People drink new tea, while they drink aged wine" is a long-standing summary of tea-drinking life. This is a cognitive bias, and not all tea leaves are better when they are fresh. Some tea leaves are better when stored for a period of time, as it improves the taste and nutrition.
Editor's reminder:
Don't deliberately pursue tea stains in the teapot, as this is a long-standing misconception. Some people have heard that after using a purple clay teapot for a long time, the substances accumulated in the teapot can also brew fragrant tea and better retain the nutrients in the tea. This understanding is incorrect. The tea stains in the teapot are indeed the precipitation of the extracted substances in the tea, but the truly nutritional substances have been dissolved in the first brewing. What is left is just tea stains. The precipitated substances contain few nutrients and are basically considered waste products. Tea stains formed on the inner wall of the teaware contain various heavy metal substances such as cadmium, lead, iron, arsenic, and mercury. They react with the nutritional compounds in food to form insoluble precipitates, hindering the absorption of nutrients. Moreover, they can cause damage to the nervous, digestive, urinary, and hematopoietic systems when entering the body. Therefore, the retention of tea stains should have a limit, which is not to block the water outlet and not to peel off from the inner wall of the teapot, affecting the use of the teapot. In addition, tea stains should be cultivated in an environment with air circulation to avoid the growth of moldy tea stains in the teapot.
