Drinking tea is already becoming part of culture and tradition worldwide even British people found the term ‘tea time’ because drinking tea is part of their social activity. In Japan, they have their own tea ceremony which they have been doing since thousand years ago as part of their traditional tradition. However today, people are taking the activity of drinking tea to the next level by combining its culture and tradition to medication purposes. One of the types of tea that are popular today is oolong tea. It is because there are a lot of health benefits of oolong tea that people should aware of.
What Is Oolong Tea?
Oolong tea is made from Camellia sinensis, the same plant that is used to make black tea and green tea. That’s why the benefits of oolong tea are more than any types of tea because it has all the qualities of black tea and green tea as well. What makes oolong tea is different from black tea and green tea is how it is processed, while black tea is fully fermented and green tea is unfermented, oolong tea is somewhere in the middle or partially fermented. Oolong tea is originated from China, that’s why it is best known as traditional Chinese tea. The name of oolong tea is the English version of wulong cha, Chinese words for black dragon tea. Though there are a lot of version about the origin of this tea but so far the use of wulong cha sounds the most reasonable one than a story about a man named Wu Liang who by accident found a tea tree in the wood and then he got distracted by a deer and got lost, when he finally found back the original tea tree where he have picked the leaves, the leaves have turned black, wrinkled and started to oxidize.
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How the Flavor of Oolong Tea?
When it comes to the flavor of oolong tea, the taste is based on the variety. So, the options of oolong tea flavors are a lot. The taste could be sweet, really fruity, so woody, and thick just like in black tea or green just like green tea. In other words, compared to other types of tea, oolong tea provides you a lot of flavors that one of them must suits your taste best. However, for the best variety of oolong tea, the product either comes from Wuyi Mountains or Anxi County and the most famous and expensive one is the one from Wuyi Mountains. Though right now there are more places that are starting cultivating oolong tea like Guangdong and Taiwan.
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Nutritional Values of Oolong Tea” state=”closed
Nutritional Values of Oolong Tea
Before talking about the health benefits of oolong tea is better to understand more about the nutritional values contained in oolong tea. Chinese is well known for their ability in producing high quality traditional herbs for the sake of medications. Oolong tea is one of those with medication quality.
| Service Size:
1 Serving Size of Oolong Tea |
Value – %DV |
| Calories | 90 |
| Fat | 0 |
| Cholesterol | 0 |
| Sodium | 10 mg |
| Calcium | 4% |
| Total Carbohydrates | 25 g |
| Vitamin C | 100 % |
| Antioxidants | |
| – Polyphenols | |
| – Flavonoids | |
| Amino Acids | |
| Caffeine |
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It is a common knowledge that tea is containing a lot of properties that are beneficial for human health and oolong tea is no exception. Since this tea was introduced thousand years ago, Chinese have found out about the health benefits of oolong tea and now those benefits have been widely known worldwide. If you are looking for a natural solution to improve your health, why don’t consider oolong tea as your daily diet? To ensure you more, the list below may help you understand about how much benefits you could get from oolong tea.
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Weight Management
Do you know why tea is closely associated with weight management? It is because tea contains some properties like polyphenol that is effective in weight management such as:
- Enhances the Function of Fat Cells
Fat cells are essential to produce energy; however unused fat cells are the reasons behind weight gain. The factors that cause unused fat cells are a lot but oolong tea will reduce or eliminate those factors so fat cells could function optimally.
- Controls Body Metabolism
Healthy metabolism means all body parts are functioning optimally including the nutrients absorption. If nutrients are not absorbed optimally, weight gain is the direct effect. Consuming oolong tea in regular basis could assist in controlling body metabolism.
- Reduces the Risk of Obesity
Obesity is not as simple as gaining weight. Obesity is a condition where body is no longer able to control the excessive fat cells in the body. To reduce the risk of obesity is highly recommended to drink oolong tea regularly.
- Natural Weight Loss Solution
If you are currently in weight loss program, don’t forget to put oolong tea to your daily beverage. With antioxidant properties and polyphenol that could optimize certain enzymes to enhance the function of fat cells will become a natural solution to weight loss.
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Natural Source of Antioxidants
Antioxidant could be produced by the body but most of antioxidants should be extracted from food you consume and oolong tea is one of the healthy beverages with relatively high amount of antioxidants properties.
- Removes Free Radicals
It is already a common knowledge that all foods that are rich of antioxidants are able to fight the effect caused by free radicals. Oolong tea contains antioxidants that could remove free radicals completely from your body.
- Prevents the Development of Cancerous Cells
The direct effect of free radicals if it is not dealt with immediately is the development of cancerous cells. In other words, oolong tea is a delicious anti-cancer solution you should put into your daily diet to prevent cancer.
- Natural Sources of Powerful Antioxidant
There are a lot of types of antioxidants but polyphenol is the one of the most powerful one. Luckily, oolong tea is containing relatively high amount of polyphenol which is enough to fulfill your daily antioxidant intake.
- Lowers the Level of Cholesterol
It has been proven in many studies and scientific researches that polyphenol is effective in lowering the level of cholesterol. In other words, once cholesterol under control, the risk of some serious cardiovascular problems like stroke and heart attack could be reduced.
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Good for Skin and Hair
Actually, oolong tea is not only good for skin but some properties contained in oolong tea has been proven to be effective in treating some skin conditions.
- Treats Eczema Effectively
Eczema is one of the skin condition caused by allergic reaction. This condition is not easy to treat unless you know the source of allergic; however oolong tea could assist in treating eczema effectively.
- Acts Anti-Allergic Compound
As mentioned in point number 9, the reason why oolong tea is effective in treating eczema is because it is also containing some anti-allergic compounds. However, though it could treat eczema, it is still important for you to meet your doctor to find out the source of allergic to prevent this condition to relapse in the future.
- Natural Solution for Healthy Skin
If you want to have healthy and glowing skin, don’t only depending on some cosmetic products made from chemical compounds. It is better to get back to natural solution and oolong tea is a delicious way to keep your skin healthy.
- Relieves Chronic Skin Problems
Eczema is one of the chronic skin conditions but it is not the only one. Oolong tea has properties like polyphenols that are effective to relieve some chronic skin problems but don’t be mistaken oolong tea as medication to cure the conditions. Meeting your dermatologist is still required.
- Reduces the Skin Irritation
There are a lot of factors that could cause skin irritation, though oolong tea cannot cure it completely, but at least it could reduce the symptoms until you find the medication to cure the condition.
- Promotes Healthy Hair Growth
Not only good for skin, oolong tea is also good for healthy hair growth. Just consume oolong tea in daily basis especially in the morning to provide nutrition to your skin as well as your hair.
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For the Sake of Healthy Bones
Many studies have found that consuming oolong tea in regular and long term basis could provide benefit to the healthy bones.
- Prevents Osteoporosis
Osteoporosis occurs when bones are not getting enough calcium or calcium is not optimally absorbed by the body. Oolong tea has been proven to prevent osteoporosis not because it is rich of calcium but because it could promote the calcium that enters the body to be absorbed optimally.
- Protects Teeth
Consuming oolong tea regularly could protect teeth from getting decay. However, you have to make sure to brush or at least rinse your teeth after drinking tea because tea could leave stains in your teeth.
- Promotes Healthy Bone
Healthy bones means your bone is not only strong but also could function optimally. Oolong tea contains some properties that could support healthy bone density to promote healthy bone optimally.
- Maintains Bone Mineral Density in Senior Age
You cannot stop the aging process but you can slow down the bad effects from getting old. Consuming oolong tea since you were young could assist in maintaining bone mineral density so your bones will still get enough mineral stocks during senior age.
- Stimulates the Retention of Minerals
Mineral absorption will slow down naturally as you are getting old and then it will stop completely. That’s why making sure you have enough stock of minerals (especially calcium) when you are entering senior age is important and consuming oolong tea could stimulate the retention of minerals.
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Friendly Beverages for Diabetic Patients
Most of tea varieties are good for diabetic patients as long as you know how to consume it in the right way. Consuming tea in its original state without additional ingredients like refined sugar or dairy products is highly recommended. Here are the health benefits of tea oolong for diabetic patients:
- Delicious Way in Treating Type 2 Diabetes
Even in this modern world where modern medication is becoming the source of healing, oolong tea is still used as herbs to assist as supplementary drugs of patients that has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.
- Assists in Regulating Blood Sugar in Blood Stream
It is because the ability of oolong tea to regulate blood sugar in blood stream has been proven scientifically. It is closely related to the ability of oolong tea in regulating the insulin stock in the blood stream so glucose could be turned in glycogen optimally.
- Reduces the Risk of Blood Sugar Spikes
As the regulation of blood sugar in blood stream is without disturbance, the risk of blood sugar spikes could be reduced significantly. That’s why oolong tea is considered to be friendly beverages for diabetic patients.
- Balances the Blood Sugar Level
It is not easy to balance the blood sugar level but oolong tea has been proven effectively to be able doing that with one condition, you should consume it in moderate amount only and without the addition of refined sugar.
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Stress Management
It’s a thousand years old secret that tea is good to manage stress. A cup of hot tea after a very long day at work could help you releasing your stress.
- Releases Stress Effectively
There are two reasons why oolong tea is effective in releasing stress, first is because of the polyphenols found in oolong tea and the second is L-theanine, an amino acid that could block L-glutamic acid that affect the brain function to reduce the stress.
- Revitalizes Your Alertness
Always keep some teabags of oolong tea in your office because whenever you start losing your focus; just enjoy a cup of oolong tea to get your alertness back. It is such an easy and delicious way to revitalizing your head on work again.
- Improves Your Mental Performances
It is not only your physical performance that should be improved but your mental performance as well. Stress and too much pressure could affect your mental performance but by drinking a cup of oolong tea you could deal with all the factors that could affect your mental performance.
- Healthy Replacement of Energy Drink
Energy drink could be effective in some way to help you boosting your performance however most of energy drink products are made from artificial ingredients and full of refined sugar. Combining oolong tea with sugar could be a healthy replacement of energy drink because the caffeine in oolong tea and sugar will give you the same effect as energy drink but in healthier way.
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Others Health Benefits
Yes, there are more health benefits of oolong tea that you should know and some of them could be the reason why you should put this tea to your daily diet immediately.
- Mildly Antiseptic For Healthy Intestine
If you are consuming oolong tea in daily basis, it could act as mildly antiseptic for healthy intestine because oolong tea contains some properties that will clear and kill bad bacteria inside the intestine.
- Good for Digestion
Once your intestine is cleared from unnecessary bacteria that could cause some stomach problems, what you will get is healthy digestion system. Healthy digestion system will affect your body metabolism as well.
- Maintains Healthy Immune System
Besides polyphenols, there is one more type of antioxidant that is also found in oolong tea; it is flavonoids. This type of antioxidants has been widely known to be effective in maintaining healthy immune system.
- Produces Anti-Bacterial Proteins
Do you know what the function of anti-bacterial proteins is? Well, body needs a lot of type of protein and this one is one that is essential because this type of protein could fight infection and provide support to your immunity system.
- Lowers the Risk of Ovarian Cancer
It has been proven scientifically by certain studies and researches that women who are consuming black tea, green tea or oolong tea regularly is possible to cut the risk of ovarian cancer up to 50%. So, drink it up anyway, since it is a delicious way to fight cancer.
- Increases Cognitive Activity
Amino acids are essential for brain function and there are some types of amino acids found in oolong tea that could assist in increasing the cognitive activity.
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Word of Cautions
Though there are a lot of health benefits of oolong tea, still there are some words of cautions you should take into account. Oolong tea is considered to have quite strong flavor though it is only partially fermented. Though some of the list below is a rare case but for you who are sensitive to caffeine should take those lists seriously.
- Caffeine contained in oolong tea could affect people differently. However, if you consume it in excessive amount instead of health benefits, you will suffer some conditions like headache, anxiousness and sleeplessness.
- For those who have weak stomach, excessive consumption of oolong tea could lead to diarrhea and some more digestive problems.
- Too much oolong tea in your blood also could cause confusion and irregular heartbeat.
- If you are currently in a certain medication is better to reduce or stop the consumption of oolong tea because it could interfere with the effectiveness of medications.
- Since caffeine in oolong tea is quite strong for some people is better to avoid consuming it at night, so it won’t affect your sleep.
- Due to its caffeine contain, pregnant and breastfeeding women also need to limit their consumption of oolong tea.
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The best way to enjoy oolong tea is when it is served hot. However, if you prefer iced tea, you could increase the flavor by adding fresh squeezed lemon juice and two or three teaspoons of stevia (based on your taste). For the best taste you could put the tea in the refrigerator for 2 or 3 hours before serve it, but you cannot wait that long, just simply add ice cubes to the tea but you should consume it immediately or the ice will ruin the original taste of oolong tea.