Tea: Second Only to Water : Part 2

by Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

(Page 2 of 3)

With the Korean War in the 1950s, uncertainties about tea supplies resurfaced, and the United States began to look for other suppliers.

"Argentina filled the bill," Dick says, "because tea could grow very fast there. Although the country didn't produce an outstanding tea, it produced a good average tea."

Today, most of our tea comes from Argentina, China (which got back into the U.S. market in 1978), and Java. Thirty years ago most of it came from India and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Argentine black tea is the kind most used for iced tea, and that's another reason black tea dominates the U.S. market.

Some Like It Cold

America is unique in its tea consumption habits, the Tea Council says, in that approximately 40 billion of the 50 billion cups consumed here each year are over ice.

Iced tea debuted in 1904 at the Louisiana State Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Mo. According to the Tea Council, "The temperature was soaring and the staff in the Far East Tea House couldn't get any fair-goers to even look their way, let alone sample their tea. So they poured the hot tea over ice cubes and the drink quickly became the exposition's most popular beverage."

The tea bag was born the same year as iced tea, and its arrival was equally serendipitous. A Boston tea merchant began sending samples of tea in small silk bags for customers to try. Eventually, the convenient pre-measured sacks came to dominate the tea market. In 1994, according to the Tea Council, approximately 60 percent of tea brewed in the United States was prepared from tea bags; just over 1 percent was brewed from loose tea. Iced tea mixes accounted for another 25 percent of prepared tea, and the rest was made from instant tea.

These statistics attest to the importance of the "convenience factor" in tea's growing popularity in this country. The demand for convenience that led to the introduction of the tea bag and the creation of instant tea and iced tea mixes led also to the more recent packaging of ready-to-drink iced tea in cans, bottles, and plastic containers. Ready-to-drink teas are the fastest-growing tea products and the fastest-growing new product in the supermarket, according to the Tea Council.

The Tea Council estimates total U.S. tea sales for 1994 at $3.75 billion, up from $1.8 billion in 1990. On any given day, the council says, about half the population drinks tea, with the greatest concentration of drinkers in the South and Northeast.

Keeping teacups full in the United States and around the world takes a lot of tea. In 1993, 2,581,317 metric tons of tea were produced and 1,142,650 metric tons exported, according to the International Tea Committee's 1994 Bulletin of Statistics. This billion dollar business got its start centuries ago from a plant that once grew quietly undisturbed in a far corner of the world. William H. Ukers, in his comprehensive 1935 tome All About Tea, writes:

"Mother Nature's original tea garden was located in the monsoon district of southeastern Asia. Many other plants now grow there, but specimens of the original jungle, or wild, tea plant are still found in the forests of the Shan states of northern Siam, eastern Burma, Yunnan, Upper Indo-China, and British India. ... Before any thought was given to dividing this land into separate states, it consisted of one primeval tea garden where the conditions of soil, climate, and rainfall were happily combined to promote the natural propagation of tea."

Tonic in a Teapot?

The first documented reference to tea, according to the Tea Council of the U.S.A., came in 350 A.D., when the Chinese scholar Kuo P'o described "k'u t'u" as a medicinal beverage "made from the leaves by boiling."

In his book All About Tea, William H. Ukers cites other references from China in the first millenium that ascribe to tea the healing powers of a virtual wonder drug:

The seventh century medical book, Pen ts'ao, proclaims that tea quenches thirst, lessens the desire for sleep, and "gladdens and cheers the heart." Even today, no one would take great exception to that, but the book goes on to pronounce the drink good for tumors or abscesses about the head, ailments of the bladder, inflammation of the chest, and dissipating heat caused by the phlegms. And the eighth century Ch'a Ching, or Tea Classic, written by the Chinese scholar Lu Yu, contains this prescription for children: "Bitter ch'a [tea] made with the rootlets of onions can cure children who are frightened and tumble without apparent causes."

Although these early claims have not been validated by 20th century science, recent studies do show some evidence that polyphenols — chemicals in tea with antioxidative and other biochemical properties — may, in fact, have value in protecting against some serious ailments.

Because they are processed differently, green and black tea have slightly different chemical makeups. Both contain polyphenols, however, and both have shown positive results in laboratory studies.

In a review article published in the July 7, 1993, issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Chung S. Yang, M.D., of Rutgers University in New Jersey reports that "many laboratory studies have demonstrated inhibitory effects of tea preparations and tea polyphenols against tumor formation and growth." The studies, though not conclusive, are intriguing.

About the Author

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FDA is A United States government body that oversees medical devices, including contact lenses, intraocular lenses, excimer lasers and eyedrops. In the US, these products must be approved by the FDA before they can be marketed.