A study published in the Society of Chemical Industry found Greek mountain tea as potent as the highly revered Green tea at inducing cellular antioxidant defenses and reducing oxidative stress. And we think it tastes a whole lot better!
In this study the antioxidant effects of a Greek mountain tea extract were investigated in a biological system (HepG2 cells) in basal condition after the induction of an oxidative stress, and compared to those of a Green Tea extract.
The study also showed that Greek mountain tea has a different phenolic pattern than Green tea, with catechins being predominant in Green tea and chlorogenic acid, hypolatein, apigenin and isoscutellarein in Greek mountain tea.
The study’s authors concluded by noting that they believed this to be the first comparison in a biological system between two different plants commonly used to make teas and believe it has potentially important implications for screening or evaluating antioxidant beverages.
For those desiring a daily antioxidant and phyto-nutrient boost, but interested in a caffeine-free and more taste bud friendly alternative to Green tea - we suggest our organic Greek mountain tea, from the top of Mt. Othrys, Greece. It tastes great plain, and is delicious with a spot of raw honey!
Food editor, Sasha Paulson, from the Napa Valley Register, writes about her discovery of Greek mountain tea in Greece. Happily she finds that the Greek mountian tea she tried back home (compliments of Klio), was the same delightful experience that she had near the Acropolis in Athens. Read the whole story here:
Out with the old, in with the new. Our generation’s youth is notorious for capitalizing on the latest trends. Over the past few decades, tea has become a popular beverage choice amongst the younger consumers and coffee is slowly, but surely, fading out. According to a recent survey by the International Trade Centre, US tea imports have increased by 30% in the past 10 years. What is the motive behind this tea takeover?
Tea is trendy.
For starters, tea is simply considered to be more hip. This may sound like bizarre reasoning, but healthy is in – and the healthier, the better. Across the United States popular trends now include workouts like outdoor Yoga, Pilates, juicing, The Mediterranean Diet, Paleo, etc. Even designer brands of workout clothing are a hot commodity within this market.
Physical health awareness is becoming more prominent in today’s society.
As health related diseases continue to rise in the United States, younger generations have become more aware of the impact our diet has on our future health. Greek Herbal Tea is linked to countless health benefits including essential nutrients, disease prevention, digestive and immune system support, etc. In addition to being linked to longevity in ancient and modern day Greece, the benefits of Greek Herbal Tea are quite obvious: it is caffeine-free, packed with antioxidants, flavonoids, essential oils – and the list goes on.
Consumers nationwide have decided to ditch the bean and surrender their coffee mug. According to the National Coffee Association’s Coffee Drinking Trends of 2015, the total number of Americans that drink coffee daily has declined by 4% in the past year. In contrast, the specialty tea market (those featuring exotic, unique teas such as Greek Herbal Tea) has expanded significantly the past ten years.
Could this all be linked to the desire to be trendy? Maybe so, but it is definitely beneficial in more ways than one!
Will you change your coffee break to tea time?
Learn more about America’s youth and the tea trend:
At Klio we talk a lot about the phyto-nutrients in our teas and I often get asked the simple questions of “what are they?” and “what do they do? In full disclosure, this is just a “primer” on this significant and fascinating subject, which is worthy of much greater study, and fortunately phyto-nutrients are increasingly the subject of a lot of interesting research.
So what are phyto-nutrients?
Phyto-nutrients are also known as phyto-chemicals. The word “phyto” is the Greek word for plant. Phyto-nutrients are organic compounds found in all plants to varying degrees; they include flavanoids, polyphenols, caratenoids, saponins, lignans, resveratrol, terpenes, the list goes on.
Phyto-nutrients protect plants from threats such as germs, insects, fungus, disease, and free radicals that result from exposure to excessive ultra-violet rays and other environmental factors. They are responsible for the color, shades, smell and flavor of the plant. The type and amount of phyto-nutrients are influenced by the species of the plant and its growing environment.
So what do phyto-nutrients do for us?
There are literally thousands of different phyto-nutrients and more being discovered everyday. In terms of calories, they are insignificant, but they are very important as it relates to health. Many phyto-nutrients are also antioxidants.
Generally speaking the key benefit of phyto-nutrients is believed to be protection from diseases, cancer and other health complications, and in particular, those related to aging.
According to the USDA website, phyto-nutrients may: enhance immune response, enhance cell-to-cell communication, alter estrogen metabolism, cause cancer cells to die (apoptosis), repair DNA damage caused by smoking and other toxic exposures, detoxify carcinogens through the activation of the cytocrome P450 and Phase II enzyme systems.
Maria Gorden, a registered dietician offered this rather succinct explanation: “Phyto-nutrients allow for optimal cellular function and communication. When our cells are communicating effectively, the proper sequence of enzymatic reactions take place. This all leads to biochemical reactions creating healthier tissues and organ systems, detoxification of foreign substances, astrong immune system, and muscles that will perform when called upon.”
In short, phyto-nutrients are believed to play a significant role in achieving and maintaining optimal health, physical performance and defending us against disease, cancer and other health complications.
So now that you have an idea of what phyto-nutrients are, and what they do, make it a point to increase your intake. Few people incorporate adequate amounts and variety of plants (fruits and vegetables) into their diets. The last survey I saw pegged the number in the US at around 2.25 servings a day, with potatoes (a starch!!) and juice being the biggest contributors to the total. No wonder the health statistics of our country are so abysmal. We should be striving for at least 9 (preferably more) servings of different fruits and vegetables per day, weighted more toward vegetables than fruit. They should include a variety of colors. Worth noting, the nutrient content of our fruits and vegetables has declined over the last fifty years – a result of modern farming practices, so all the more reason to consume even more.
The herbs that make up Klio teas are known for their high phyto-nutrient content. And our brewing procedures are designed to extract the most from the beneficial properties our herbs offer. Drink them to boost your daily intake of phyto-nutrients. But that doesn’t mean you can skimp on your recommended daily intake of fruits and vegetables!
Interested in learning more? Just do a simple search for “phyto-nutrient” and you’ll find a wealth of information on this fascinating topic.
Oh how often we trade quality for convenience. The processed food revolution was all about convenience - unfortunately fooling people into believing that caloric satiety was the same as nutrition. That’s how we became a nation of the well-fed but nutritionally malnourished. However, a clear and growing movement toward whole foods and beverages has been gaining momentum in this country, as heath concious consumers are beginning to appreciate the trade-offs between conventience and quality.
As it relates to processed tea, the little tea bag was an ingenious invention from a commercial standpoint. Dust and fannings left over from the tea sorting process were without use until the tea bag was invented sometime in the 1940's. This enabled large tea companies to make good use of an otherwise low quality by-product. Incidentally this “tea dust” made for a much shorter steeping period, although a poorer quality tea. But talk about a planetary line up – the tea companies got a new category, and impatient tea drinkers had a quicker and easier cup of tea. Alas, the bagged tea market was born and eventually it migrated to the world of herbal infusions.
To be sure, true connoisseurs of tea have always looked down on tea bags, opting for the higher quality loose leaf tea. With no intent to sound snobby, (we only look up over here) we at Klio are in the same camp. By mission, we are a whole and loose leaf tea company. Interestingly, my initial idea was to bring Greek Mountian Tea to the US in a bagged form, but I found that it did not lend itself to a mechanical process. In addition, the volume required to make a good cup of tea would not fit in a bag. While that was dissapointing initially, I came to realize the difference between loose leaf and bagged tea and believe that processing the tea in a way to fit small bags exposes it to oxidation of the critical essential oils. By selling it with the most minimal manipulation it takes to get it into our packaging, we are delivering it to you in its true form. The same way the ancients enjoyed it. While other of our teas, would work well in mechanized tea bag processing we are committed to loose leaf all the way. And as an aside, when you steep a tea bag, you are not just extracting something from the tea inside the bag, you are extracting something from the bag itself. Whether its made of paper or nylon, I'm not sure that a lifetime of drinking "tea bag extraction" is a good thing....just a thought.
There have been advancements in tea bagging - such as the sachet. This gives more room for larger pieces and allows for better steeping than conventional bags. It is definitely a big improvement, but not the same as loose leaf in my humble opinion. There are many “contract manufacturers” that offer high speed mechanized tea processing (bags or sactchets) to tea companies that do not wish to own the necessary machines, and most do not. It would be much less expensive for us to utilize their services versus our labor intensive hand packaging processes. But we are committed to delivering natural herbs to consumers with the absolute least amount of human and mechancial intervention. We are convinced that whole and loose leaf is the way to go, and once you get used to making tea that way I’m sure you will agree, if you weren't there already!
It is hard to imagine anyone that honestly does not appreciate the contrast between organic and conventional farming, and what it means to their health and the environment. Crop chemicals have brought us cheaper products that in the end are certainly not cheaper. We’re paying more than the difference in health care costs and a greater impact on our environment than is necessary to grow our food.
However many people argue that conventional farming of some fruits and vegetables is less worrisome because of thick peels or skins. For example, watermelon versus kale. I think there is some truth to that. However, I might argue that the uptake of chemicals in the soil (that have yet to completely breakdown) are equally dangerous. But that’s not the point I wanted to make with this post.
Lets look at tea, and why organic is of such critical importance. You can wash, soak, scrub or peel most fruits and vegetables before consuming them. But tea is obviously different. You don’t consume the leaf or herb, but the water that it is boiled or steeped in. Its like washing your vegetables then drinking the wash water (sorry, trying to illustrate a point). That thought weighed heavily on me when I was first envisioning what Klio would be two years ago. And I committed to being an organic company. Which meant two things. First we had to source certified organically grown herbs. This is infinitely more time consuming and difficult in Greece and it is more expensive. Second, we had to organically certify our own packaging operations, to insure that chemicals and cleaning solvents don’t find their way into our packaging facility here in the US.
This benefits everyone in the supply chain (growers/packers) in addition to you our customer and provides peace of mind. We think its worth the extra cost and hope you do to.
Many of our teas are known for having high levels of antioxidants. We have had our Greek Mountain Tea tested by Brunswick Labs (www.brunswicklabs.com), the premier antioxidant test lab. And will test others as we offer them. Brunswick utilizes the most advanced antioxidant testing technology, called ORAC 5.0, which provides measurements of the antioxidant capacity against the five most common Radical Oxygen Species found in humans. Standard ORAC testing only measures one.
I think this is useful information for consumers and hopefully more companies will start utilizing advanced antioxidant tests such as these to provide factual data about their products. But unfortunately, like all things, this still leaves room for the unscrupulous to use a “sleight of hand” with the facts, and mislead consumers. One tea brand, for example, compares a serving of their tea (which consists of 3 grams of tea plus 8 oz of water) with 3 gram servings of blueberries and pomegranates, both of which are known for their high antioxidants. Their tea has an antioxidant value approaching 2,000, while the blueberries and pomegranates are each around 150. So their tea has 13x the antioxidants of blueberries! That’s pretty amazing tea, right? Problem is - a 3 gram serving of blueberries is less than one actual berry. An actual serving of blueberries is more like a half cup (113 grams). In which case the antioxidants per serving are more like 5,000+. The honest comparison therefore would be that a serving of their tea has about 2,000 antioxidants versus a serving of blueberries, which has about 5,000. While less impactful it is honest– and consumers deserve the clear truth. Although there is nothing incorrect about the data they are sharing, it is entirely misleading. By the way, 3 grams equals 1/10 of an ounce. So one serving of their tea has 13x the antioxidants of one tenth of an ounce of blueberries. Hhhmmm….
I emailed the owner about this last year but did not receive a response. And I noticed their tea on the shelf at Whole Foods last week with the same claim still on the package.
If you ever see anything on our website or marketing materials that you believe to be misleading please bring it to my attention: steve@klioteacom. If you are right, I will publicly acknowledge it, immediately correct it, and I will send you some free tea for taking the time to bring it to my attention.
By the way, our Organic Greek Mountain Tea has an ORAC 5.0 antioxidant value of approximately 7,000 per 10 oz serving and a polyphenol measurement of approximately 120 grams. This is not comparable to the antioxidant levels described above because it is a broader test. We have also had Brunswick test a high quality organic green tea (pure/unblended) and a rooibos tea, both purchased from Whole Foods, to see how they compared. The rooibos was lower than our mountain tea, while the green tea score was meaningfully higher (10,000 and 150, respectively). Presumably a blended green tea would score lower than the pure one we tested. So if you want the exact same antioxidants as pure green tea, you’ll have to drink a few more ounces of our Greek Mountain Tea. But that’s easy, because it taste a lot better:). In fairness, green tea has other very beneficial properties, such as catechins, which Greek Mountain Tea does not have. Conversely, Greek Mountain tea has a broad range of other phytonutrients and high amounts of beneficial essential oils. If this is making you dizzy, I suggest taking a break and brewing a big soothing mug of our Greek Mountain tea – it’s naturally caffeine free of course, so don’t let the time of day get in the way.
More to come on ORAC 5.0 and antioxidants later…..stay tuned.
