Benefits of different teas

Multiple brands have come up with numerous tea variants ranging from green tea to organic, black, herbal and fruit-based infusions. While we all drink tea as a stress buster, comforter, there are many other hidden benefits that different types of tea offer if consumed in a definite time and manner, say experts.

Razi Khan, Director -- sales and marketing -- at Typhoo, and Kaushal Dugar, founder and CEO at Teabox, have listed some of the benefits that you can reap from some of the commonly used tea variants:

*Black tea: Black tea is rarely mentioned in the context of tea's health benefits but it is rich in antioxidants, improves oral health, boosts weight loss and even brings down stress levels.

Also being an oxidised tea, it is known for having anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant properties that help control levels of bad cholesterol in the body, improve bone density, mitigate cardiovascular ailments and promote wellness.

*Green tea: Being a storehouse of many antioxidant compounds, it's easy to assume that green tea is one of the healthiest beverages. According to traditional Chinese medicine, drinking green tea helps relieve body aches and pains, aids digestion, impacts the process of detoxification and, generally, enhances the quality of life.

Aqueous extract of green tea polyphenols contains antimutagenic, antidiabetic, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory and hypocholesterolemic properties.

*Oolong tea

Weight management: Oolong tea promotes fat metabolism (pushing the body to burn fat for energy), and blocks the absorption of excess fat and cholesterol. So regular consumption of oolong tea can boost your weight loss.

Diabetes: Blood sugar and insulin can be regulated by oolong tea at any one time. This prevents the dangerous spikes and dips in blood sugar that spells disaster for type-2 diabetes patients. With regular medicines, oolong tea can balance the blood sugar levels.

Stress management: A controlled experiment performed on mice showed that 10 to 18 per cent of subjects showed improvement in stress levels after consumption of oolong tea. The presence of natural polyphenols in it is cited as the reason.

--IANS

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