Drinking tea more than three times a week

It costs just a few dozen to a few hundred yuan per year. Brewing a cup takes only a few minutes, so it doesn’t take up much time at all.

A study conducted in China involving 100,900 participants, called China-PAR, tracked half of them for 7.3 years. The results showed that people with a regular tea-drinking habit had a 15% lower risk of death (hazard ratio 0.85, 95% CI 0.79–0.90, which is a reliable range). For those starting at age 50, regular tea drinkers gain 1.41 extra years free from atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases, and 1.26 extra years of overall life expectancy.

Wang X, Liu F, Li J, et al. (2020). Tea consumption and the risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality: The China-PAR project. European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, 27(18), 1956-1963. https://doi.org/10.1177/2047487319894685；茶叶霉菌毒素：Cui P 等 (2020). Quantitative analysis and dietary risk assessment of aflatoxins in Chinese post-fermented dark tea. Food and Chemical Toxicology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fct.2020.111830；Zhou H 等 (2022). Mycotoxins in Tea (Camellia sinensis (L.) Kuntze): Contamination and Dietary Exposure Profiling in the Chinese Population. Toxins. https://doi.org/10.3390/toxins14070452；绿茶提取物与肝损伤：Hu J 等 (2018). The safety of green tea and green tea extract consumption in adults - Results of a systematic review. Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yrtph.2018.03.019

The controversy lies in this: these types of studies are merely tracking records, and among Chinese men who drink tea, the proportion of those who smoke and drink alcohol is high. The author has already subtracted a portion of such influences, but they have not been entirely removed. Another point: do not drink scalding hot liquids; see item 30 of this section regarding the temperature of hot drinks (do not drink scalding hot tea). Some people worry about mycotoxins in tea leaves. In China, 158 samples of dark tea were tested, and 2 samples were found to contain aflatoxin; based on the amount of tea consumed, the ingested amount is below international acceptable limits. Another study examined 352 tea samples and 16 types of mycotoxins, and only the average content of ochratoxin A in dark tea exceeded the limit. Based on the amount of tea consumed by the Chinese people, neither study found a dietary risk in its calculations. Keep tea leaves in a dry place; do not drink tea that has become damp or moldy. Green tea extract capsules are different: swallowing a large amount of high-concentration catechins at once can damage the liver, but brewed tea does not have this problem. Therefore, what is discussed here refers only to brewed tea; do not substitute it with extract-based health supplements.