Tea may be India's national beverage, but it's time to switch to the green version, says PANKAJA SRINIVASAN
Chai! The magic four-letter word that instantly conjures up deliciously strong, steaming hot tea on cold misty mornings. We are a nation of great tea drinkers. But the beverage we gulp down is not exactly what the doctor ordered. Have you heard of green tea? Not many people are drinking that. But now with `wellness' campaigns, weight loss and holistic health treatments being aggressively pursued, there are those who have woken up to the benefits of green tea and the more upmarket of supermarkets are stocking various brands of green tea promising miraculous cures— from glowing skin, great hair, a better figure right up there to fighting cancer.
The beginning
Actually green tea is the mother of all teas. At one time it was the only kind of tea there was. Five thousand years ago a sprig of tea accidentally found its way into the royal cup of hot water that Emperor Shen Nung was sipping, and that was perhaps the first ever cup of brewed green tea. The Chinese emperor was smitten and soon the brew became the sought after drink the rich and the famous sipped. And they called it `Cha'.
The difference between green tea and the other kinds of tea is that the former is not fermented. This helps in preserving its powerful anti-oxidants. And what are anti-oxidants? They are substances that keep sickness at bay and oxidise fat. In fact, the story goes that poorer Chinese people stopped drinking the non-fermented green tea as it so effectively reduced fat. They wanted to retain some of the fat in their bodies as they were living in hard times. So they started drinking partially fermented tea instead as that had less fat-oxidising elements. "Findings did not depend on whether the women were smoking or not, whether or not they took hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and whether or not they suffered from vascular disease," she said.