Author: Kevin Dickinson / Source: Big Think
- Tea was cultivated in China nearly 5,000 years ago.
- Its molecular makeup makes it the perfect biohack for regulating mood, alertness, and concentration throughout the day.
- Tea may not be a panacea, but studies suggest promising long-term health benefits.
Chinese sage-king Shennong discovered tea when the leaves of a Camellia sinensis shrub drifted into his cauldron of boiling water. An agriculturalist and medicinal pioneer, Shennong decided to test the fortuitous brew and relished its uplifting properties. In other botanical tests, Shennong would be poisoned more than 70 times. Each time, he cured himself with tea.
That’s one version of the story anyway.
While Shennong is a mythical figure, tea does originate from China, where it was cultivated nearly 5,000 years ago as a vegetable. Over time it made the shift from food staple to a beverage that closely resembles what we call matcha. Today, only water is a more widely consumed beverage.
Another debunked aspect of the legend is tea’s elixir-like effects. Full disclosure: Tea is not a catch-all antidote. It does, however, come with a bevy of nutrients and chemical byproducts that make people feel good when drinking it. Add to that tea’s pleasantly earthy taste and lush aromatics, and you can see why tea’s popularity spread across time and culture.
Our ancestors may not have called tea a biohack, but they knew it could improve your day to make you more attentive, more motivated, and just plain feel better.
Tea, the other morning pick-me-up
Yerba mate tea served in a gourd, the traditional way to drink the beverage in South America.
Americans quaff a lot of coffee. A lot. And we don’t even crack the top ten. While coffee comes with its own health benefits—a subject for another discussion—most people enjoy a morning cup as warm pick-me-up.
Coffee has its drawbacks though. An 8 oz. cup contains anywhere from 100–165 mg of caffeine. This means you max out your daily caffeine recommended intake in two to four cups—not great if you desire several caffeine fixes throughout your day. It’s also rather acidic, rating below a 7 on the pH scale. While not as bad as soda‘s, coffee’s acidity can upset people’s stomachs and eats away at tooth enamel.
For people looking to move away from coffee, or simply drink less, tea offers a viable, caffeine-fueled alternative. One potential substitute is yerba mate.
Yes, we’re cheating a bit here. Yerba mate isn’t technically tea, because it doesn’t come from the Camellia sinensis plant. It is made from the dried leaves of Ilex paraguariensis, a South American holly tree. It is a tea beverage, though, as the English word has expanded to include most any drink that infuses leaves, fruits, and flowers into hot water.
Mate contains more caffeine than either green or black tea but sports less than coffee (85 mg/8 oz. cup). Its strong, bitter flavor offers that robustness that people enjoy about coffee but with far less acidity. One study found that yerba mate’s pH values stayed in the neutral range (6.75–7.89), so it plays well with teeth.
Toss in mate’s vitamins, minerals, and amino acids, and the drink may have health benefit potentials akin to traditional tea (though research in this area has not been conclusive).
If mate isn’t to your taste, consider matcha tea instead. It has more caffeine than steeped green tea but less than coffee (70 mg per 8 oz. cup). Matcha is also richly aromatic with an umami flavor that makes for a hearty morning sip.
Overcoming the afternoon…
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