Tea is the most extensively consumed beverage in the world, second only to water, and is found in about 80% of American households. Tea was drank in the United States in 2017 in excess of 84 billion servings, or more than 3.8 billion gallons! Tea is adaptable: it can be served hot or iced, at any time, in any location, and for any purpose.
Consumers are becoming more interested in herbal tea. It’s manufactured by extracting the active herbal components by boiling plants or dissolving plant compounds in water. Heart attacks, cancer, and other ailments are thought to be fought using herbal tea infusions. It’s uncertain if drinking herbal tea hot or cold is healthy.
Volunteers who drank unsweetened, caffeinated herbal tea (yerba mate) cold or hot were researched by Claire Maufrais, PhD, and colleagues from the University of Fribourg in Switzerland. The plant yerba mate is indigenous to the South American rainforests. According to several studies, yerba mate can help lower blood sugar and cholesterol levels. Chronic fatigue, headaches, and depression are some of the conditions for which it is utilised as a natural therapy.
For 90 minutes after each drink, the researchers examined the volunteers’ heart rate, blood flow, blood pressure, the quantity of oxygen their bodies utilised, and how much fat was broken down to produce energy (fat oxidation). They discovered that drinking the tea cold enhanced a metabolic mechanism in which the body burns calories to generate heat. Cold tea, like hot tea, enhanced fat oxidation without putting the participants’ cardiovascular systems under stress. The next step for Maufrais is to see if cold herbal tea may help with weight loss.
In Frontiers in Physiology, you may read the whole study on herbal tea by a team of researchers from the University of Fribourg.
Graduated from ENSAT (national agronomic school of Toulouse) in plant sciences in 2018, I pursued a CIFRE doctorate under contract with Sun’Agri and INRAE ​​in Avignon between 2019 and 2022. My thesis aimed to study dynamic agrivoltaic systems, in my case in arboriculture. I love to write and share science related Stuff Here on my Website. I am currently continuing at Sun’Agri as an R&D engineer.