Experience a green miracle with green tea: Raise your cups with nature's superpower

In many parts of the world, tea is already the most popular drink, and where this is not yet the case, it is well on its way to becoming so. Although there are around 3,000 products labelled as tea, only teas made from the Camellia sinensis plant deserve this designation.

As long as the Camellia sinensis leaves hang on the bush or tree, they are waterproof and gas-tight. The type of tea they are ultimately processed into after picking depends solely on the way in which the tea farmers process the leaves.

The starting point is always the fresh, green leaves of the Camellia sinensis tea plant. The majority of the world's tea harvest, around four-fifths, is quickly processed into black tea immediately after harvesting. By mechanical pressure, aggressive oxygen and heat. Only leaves for green tea are processed in a completely different way, namely extremely gently. Most of the biochemical compounds in the freshly harvested green leaf material of Camellia sinensis are not captured by the oxygen in the air and do not oxidise. The leaves remain green at the end. Like any plant, Camellia sinensis produces protective substances, primarily as a defence against diseases and other threats from the environment. Plants cannot escape their dangers and must be able to survive night frost, heatstroke, drought and feeding damage.

When consumed, such secondary plant substances also have desirable effects in the human body. These include catechins, epigallocatechin gallate, flavanol glycosides, flavones, anthocyanins, phenolic acids and the much larger version of catechins, tannins. Green tea is almost completely protected from aggressive oxygen. This makes it one of the ideal sources of polyphenols. They make up 30 to 40 per cent of the dry weight, in extracts even up to 90 per cent. Only gradually did scientists realise what this could mean for human health.