Tea Time | Benefits and Types of Tea | Your Lifestyle Upgrade

Tea Time: Benefits and Types of Tea

: Source

I’m not a huge tea drinker… but I AM a huge coffee drinker. However, one of my New Years’ resolutions was to eat healthier and I’ve been desperately looking for a good replacement to my morning coffee. My parents are both big tea drinkers, so for Christmas I went to Teavana (basically every tea drinker’s heaven) and spent way more than I should have on delicious-smelling loose leaf tea. I had no idea there were so many types of tea! They all looked amazing and were wrapped in pretty little tins. With my New Years’ Resolution in mind, I’ve been researching the health benefits of tea, as well as the different types to try.

Let’s start with the benefits. Tea can help reduce the chance of having a heart attack, as well as protect against a variety of cardiovascular and degenerative diseases. Thanks to the plethora of antioxidants, tea also boasts cancer-fighting benefits, which is still being researched. Tea was my number one choice due to the fact I can still get my daily dose of caffeine, but is still hydrating to the body and can help build exercise endurance… perfect for my riding!

So, there are four types of “real” tea: green, black, white, and oolong. White tea is the least processed (steamed and dried) of all tea types and are appreciated for their natural sweetness while black teas are strong, perfect alone or with milk and sugar. Green teas are flavorful and have a clean, delicious taste. Oolong teas come in many flavors (which is probably what I’d like to try first) and are crafted by an artisan who knows exactly how much to process the teas until they are perfect.

Are you a tea-drinker? What’s your favorite kind of tea?