Black is the new Green

When it comes to tea, the most ballyhooed and heralded one is bathed in green. The touting for green tea is not without good reason, though. Very low in calories, it’s very high in catechins like EGCG and flavonoids, the two ingredients believed to be most responsible for the health-promoting properties it brings to those who enjoy its subtle aroma and flavor. But because of green tea’s popularity and time in the spotlight, another health-promoting tea has gotten lost in the shadows.
The tea I speak of is black tea, and while I have no doubt that black tea’s popularity won’t soon eclipse green’s fame in the nutritional world, this is black tea’s time at center stage.

Black tea comes in many different varieties and is primarily cultivated in Asian countries like China and India. It’s called “black” tea because of the extended oxidation period and heat the leaves are exposed to during processing, turning its leaves a dark shade of brown or black.

What you’re probably more interested in knowing about, though, is how it measures up to green tea in terms of health promotion. Given the fact that green tea protects individuals from a wide range of diseases, it’s understandable that black tea hasn’t been given the same attention as green. But what black tea lacks in quantity, it makes up for in quality.


For instance, while green tea’s health-promotion largely revolves around its protection of the heart – studies suggest regular drinkers of green tea are 62 percent less likely to die from a stroke and 31 percent less likely to die from cardiovascular disease – a new study says that regular drinkers of black tea are a whopping 71 percent less likely to suffer from Parkinson’s Disease!

Public figures like Michael J. Fox and Muhammad Ali have given much needed attention to Parkinson’s disease in this country, the degenerative disorder that manifests itself primarily through one’s movement. Tremors, rigidity and reduced facial expression are some of the hallmarks of Parkinson’s. Some analysts believe that the incidence level of Parkinson’s disease will more than double between now and 2030 if something isn’t done to thwart its debilitating effects. But black tea might change all that.

Researchers discovered black tea’s protection against Parkinson’s after analyzing the beverage intake habits of approximately 63,300 people in China (the researchers are from the National Neuroscience Institute in Singapore). Asking the participants to fill out questionnaires, as well as reviewing the participants’ medical history, researchers found a relationship between the regular intake of caffeinated beverages and a protection from Parkinson’s. But when researchers analyzed the specific beverages these people were drinking, they found that black tea was the overriding common denominator.

“Ingredients of black tea, other than caffeine, appear to be responsible for the beverage’s inverse association with Parkinson’s disease,” wrote the study’s authors in American Journal of Epidemiology. They came to this conclusion after comparing those who drank less than one cup of black tea a month (approximately 23 cups of black tea per month, to be precise) to those who didn’t, finding that black tea drinkers were 71 percent less likely to suffer from Parkinson’s.

So, while green tea is known for the variety of ailments and diseases it assists in protecting against, black tea is increasingly becoming known as a virtual lock in protecting against specific disorders like Parkinson’s. And something tells me there’s a whole lot more where that came from.