The Incredible Chemistry in Your Cup of Tea
The biggest component of your tea liquid is water (See discussion here: Which Water ?). Of no less importance are of course the tea leaves that you add and so sooner or later (and preferably over a refreshing cup of loose leaf tea), the tea drinker is bound to wonder about the chemical makeup of what they put into their mug.
By and large, the dried tea leaf contains about 15% of amino acids (Also known as the ‘building blocks of life’, amino acids break down proteins and synthesize new ones, grow and repair body tissue, support neuro transmitters, transport nutrients; of the 20-22 recognised amino acids, 9 are classified essential (The body needs to obtain these through food) or conditionally essential (the body needs to obtain these in certain stages of life), while others are considered non-essential (in the sense that the body can produce these), and off the cuff I remember reading that tea contains 14 essential and non-essential amino acids), 30%-50% phenolics (A group of compounds that have a benzene ring with one or multiple hydroxyl groups, especially catechins; more importantly to the tea drinker, these constitute aromatic compounds), 12%-15% fibres, 15% carbohydrates, 4%-8% minerals and vitamins and a lot of other elements. (Numbers based on “FAQ Tee: 500 Fragen über Tee. Kienreich and Ratka, Coffee Media & Events, 2015). Note that substances contained in your dry leaf can but need not transfer into the liquid you drink. After all, the most common preparation of tea most of the tea leaves are removed after brewing. There is only one preparation, matcha, in which the entire leaf with all its healthy components is consumed. Even this, however, does not mean that all the substances that end up in your drinking liquid will be actively absorbed by your body. This, in turn, renders the chemistry of tea and research on its actual influence on your body impossibly difficult).
Here is a preview of a summary of what is in your tea:
and here is the full document for download, but be warned if you want to print it: We were unable to make it smaller than A2/A3, which only goes to show how much goes on in what looks like a simple cup of tea !
