Why the rich should also drink ‘poor man’s tea’

By GATONYE GATHURA

NAIROBI, KENYA: For majority of Kenyans, tea without milk and sugar is just not tea. In this country, such ‘pathetic tea’ should only go down the throats of the poorest of the poor, the financially hard-up or those advised by medics against   taking ‘real tea’.

Ironically, it appears only the impoverished—those who can’t afford milk and sugar—are getting the real health benefits of tea, if we are to believe experts at the Tea Research Foundation of Kenya and Egerton University.

To get health benefits from tea, they recommend that one should it without milk, sugar or honey.

And if you want to benefit fully, you shouldn’t merely take one cup of tea in the morning to wash down your breakfast, as most Kenyans do — take least a mug of the black liquid after about every two hours!

And consumer beware, the more milk or sweeteners you put into your tea, the more you dilute the various health-giving chemicals in the beverage.

In the last few years, the Tea Board of Kenya responding to an increasing market onslaught from artificial juices, bottled water and soft drinks, has been promoting local consumption of the beverage as a health drink.

“The objective is to drive home the message that tea is not just a “breakfast” beverage, but one to be taken any time of the day with increased frequency for better health,” said Mrs Sicily Kariuki former boss at the Tea Board of Kenya during one of the promotional campaigns.

In an early copy of the study to be published in the journal Food Chemistry in February next year, the researchers led by MW Korir of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Egerton University,  found that Kenya’s black and green teas have significant health benefits.

However, these benefits decreased as the amount of sugar or milk was increased but found honey to have the strongest diluting effects.

protect cells

The experiments, which were carried out on mice, found animals which fed on tea to have more of chemicals that are known to protect cells against damage compared to non-participating mice. But for this benefits to be achieved one has to take a cup of tea at least after every two hours.

If one cannot stand the taste of unsweetened tea the researchers advise them to use an emerging sweetener called stevia. “The addition of milk, sugar and honey significantly decreased the antioxidant activity of tea. Addition of the sweetener, stevia (Stevia rebaudiana) showed no significant influence on the antioxidant activity of tea and therefore can be recommended as a preferred sweetener for tea,” says the study.

Stevia whose cultivation in the country around started 2008, is a sweetening plant said to be 30-45 times sweeter than the traditional sugar and with very low calorific value.