Chinese green tea to improve your health
In the past, I was a regular traveler to the Far East and experienced trips averaging 6 weeks or even longer in one go. I was lucky to never spend these extended periods in a commercial hotel, instead living in a flat and experiencing Asia by living like any other Asian person. I stayed and did what the average Asian lives.
A frequent comment I got back from these long trips was how good I looked. The truth is, in most cases, I would drop quite a few pounds and actually feel much more vibrant after one of these long visits. What was the secret that really helped me get in shape and benefit health and fitness when I was in Asia?
While there may be several contributing considerations, such as a better diet, one obvious one in particular is most likely to be drinking green herbal tea. Coffee is quite scarce and hard to come by and therefore you end up drinking green tea of all varieties and you can discover many types. Suffice to say that what I did observe is that the leaf tea was generally of a markedly better quality compared to what is offered to us in the western world. I soon began to enjoy the different types of Chinese tea.
Did you know that all Chinese green tea comes from the Camellia Sinensis shrub? Variations in flavor are due to the region in which it is grown and the fermentation techniques used. The tea can range from the traditional green, which is barely processed, to a reddish black tea known as Pu-Erh that has gone through a long fermentation process. There was a time when Pu-Erh was as valuable as gold!
Different teas also have particular wonderful benefits. As an example, Oolong tea is renowned for its weight loss qualities. Drinking Oolong will help you detoxify your body and increase your metabolic rate by up to four percent. It is recommended to drink Oolong after meals to reduce excess fat in the stomach.
The ideal tea to lower bad cholesterol is Pu-Erh. Modern scientific studies have validated that Pu-Erh lowers bad cholesterol and stimulates good cholesterol, and in doing so plays an important role in supporting heart health.
Have you ever observed how young the Chinese look? In Asia, I was usually asked, mainly by grown men who are actually a bit vain, to calculate their age. Much to their frustration, I quickly found that by looking at what age they appeared and removing 10 or 15 years, I was able to determine their age quite effectively. In addition to all the antioxidants in Chinese green tea, it also has collagen that fights the breakdown of collagen in your body. Collagen gives skin elasticity and prevents wrinkles from developing. This allows for smooth, glowing skin.
I could go on forever about how great Chinese green tea is for you, but if you jump in and buy some of the cheap green tea bags that are on the market in some western grocery stores, you could be extremely disappointed. These tea bags are often produced from cheaper quality broken leaves and do not offer the equivalent flavor and added benefits of the traditional loose leaf green tea used in Asia.
Loose green tea is a whole leaf that has usually been rolled and dried. When soaked in hot water, the leaf crumbles and you will soon have a whole leaf that provides optimal flavor and health benefits.