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Green tea is a delightfully light tea that is dried in such a way that it does not darken like black tea. The leaves are less oxidized and it has a shelf life of a year (more or less), unlike black tea, which can last for years and years in drinkable condition if kept dry.
Green tea's inclusion here, however, is due to its woo status as the Next-Best-Panacea-and-Weightloss-Drink ever! Maladies other than a fat ass for which it's touted as a treatment include baldness in both men and women,[1] and that pesky malady called "cancer".[2]
Caffeine speeds up your metabolism a bit. There's also more theobromine (which is related to caffeine and works a bit like it) than in black tea, and a slightly higher concentration of Vitamin C. Some forms of tea, including green tea, contain L-theanine, an amino acid, which has been shown to very mildly reduce anxiety. Tea, depending a bit on where it's grown, can reduce tooth decay; this is because tea plants are great at soaking up all that delicious fluoride in the soil.
Tea, wine, chocolate, açaí berries, are all yummy additions to a healthy diet and have numerous potential positive side effects. Eat them, enjoy them, but don't expect miracles here.
Also, large doses can impede the effectiveness of chemotherapy for treating cancer.[6] In rare cases, people has come down with hepatitis from green tea — possibly from a contaminated batch from sketchy on-line sources.[7][8][9][10] These individual cases are in basic agreement with a recent meta-analysis which found that concentrated doses of catechin-rich green tea preparations resulted in hepatic adverse events.[11]
Avoid herbal supplements with green tea extract. If you enjoy green tea, drink it in moderation.