As educated people we know the importance of eating a balanced diet that contains five portions of fruit and vegetables, plenty of complex carbohydrates and restricted amounts of saturated fat. However, when it comes to what we drink, even health experts can get a little confused. In a recent survey of health professionals, only 23% of GPs thought that tea could be included in the daily fluid allowance, whereas more than a fifth of practice nurses believed tea to contain the same amount of caffeine as coffee.

Health Facts

• Approximately 40% of the nation's fluid intake today will be tea
• Tea without milk has no calories. Using semi-skimmed milk adds around 13 calories per cup, but you also benefit from valuable minerals and calcium
• Tea with milk provides 16% of daily calcium requirement in 4 cups
• Tea contains some zinc and folic acid
• Tea with milk contains Vitamin B6, Riboflavin B2 and Thiamin B1
• Tea is a source of the minerals manganese, essential for bone growth and body development, and potassium, vital for maintaining body fluid levels
• The average cup of tea contains less than half the level of caffeine than coffee. One cup contains only 50mg per 190ml cup
• Tea is a natural source of fluoride and delivers 45% of your daily requirement if you drink 3/4 cups per day
• Green and black teas are from the same plant, Camelia sinensis, and contain similar amounts of antioxidants and caffeine

Not All Green Tea Is the Same
Roughly 2.5 million tons of dried tea is produced each year, and about 20% of it is "green tea", which is made by steaming the fresh tea leaves lightly, and drying them quickly. The rest of it is called "black tea", and it involves fermentation of the fresh tea leaves. For medicinal purposes, green tea is considered superior to regular black tea, since it has as much as five times more of the polyphenols that are of interest to us as potent anti-oxidants and cancer preventives. The composition of the green tea varies with the geography, climate, seasonal fluctuations and the methods used in growing it. When tea is harvested, they are supposed to take only the leaf bud and the two adjacent young leaves. Older leaves are considered inferior, and they have much less of the medicinal polyphenols. Usually, a good quality green tea has about 10% by weight of polyphenols. Our teas are of the best quality which promotes the high concentration of polyphenols.