Green Tea Health Benefits: The Story of a Coffee Drinker

Below a story of a coffee drinker that turned to green tea and shared her experiences regarding the health benefits.

Sometimes when one writes about a topic as large and important as the health benefits of green tea consumption, it pays to begin at the beginning. So, at the risk of being too obvious, let’s start here: in order to derive the benefits of green tea consumption you must first drink it on a regular basis.

And for most Americans, starting a pattern of drinking green tea regularly is no small task. For me it took the cajoling of a family member just to get me to try it; and I mean really give it a chance. After all, I’m a coffee drinker and coffee drinkers don’t drink tea!

So, almost to appease this persistent family member, I followed his instructions and purchased a large ceramic tea pot, a supply of good quality green tea, and, per his instructions, brewed a large supply of green tea every few days. He insisted that this was the only way to go. He’s a very efficient type of person and he explained that having a jug of home-brewed green tea in the refrigerator so it’s easily available, is the only way a coffee-drinker can hope to establish the green tea drinking habit.

Being the good sport that I am, I followed his instructions and drank at least three cups a day, very consistently, for a month or so. The results of this diet change on my general sense of well-being both psychologically and physiologically were rather dramatic.

If you have some time to kill, then plug in “green tea health benefits” into Google and you’ll have plenty to read for at least a month. The heath benefits derived from drinking green tea are well-documented both subjectively and scientifically. Think of it this way, the evidence that green tea consumption is healthy comes from two arenas of human knowledge. The scientific, which I will call hard evidence and the subjective which I classify soft evidence.

After over six months of consistent green tea consumption I have discovered at least 3 unexpected health benefits of drinking green tea. Let me list these benefits and for the purposes of clarity, I will classify each benefit as being either hard or soft. i.e. either scientific or subjective.

1. Weight loss. Evidence type: hard and soft. I drink most of my green tea with breakfast. Right off the bat I had a decision to make: it was either my orange juice or green tea. I couldn’t do both. So I dropped the OJ. It wasn’t easy, but only after a week, I didn’t miss OJ at all. The hard fact is that dropping OJ from my breakfast means I am dropping 28,000 calories from my diet every year. (Sounds incredible but I did the math). Soft evidence: since I started drinking green tea in the morning it seems I get hungry much later than I used to.

2. Green tea will reduce cholesterol. Evidence type: hard. Green tea will reduce bad cholesterol but not significantly say scientists. Drinking up to 10 cups a day, however, will reduce the bad cholesterol significantly. Drinking 10 cups a day is probably unreasonable but it does indicate, as stated above, that green tea is more of a food than a beverage.

3. Reduced alcohol consumption. Evidence type: soft. I am going to tread very lightly here because this very unexpected benefit is very personal. My doctor has told me in no uncertain terms that I consumed too much alcohol. But as any real alcohol drinker knows, quitting or reducing drinking is easier said than done. But one night I decided to drink green tea instead of alcohol. That night for some reason, I didn’t drink any alcohol. Long story short, I hardly drink alcohol at all anymore. I drink the tea and it supplants the need for alcohol. But this is strictly personal. I don’t want to sound like a quack. But what told you is true.

As stated at the outset of this article the benefits of green tea drinking are voluminous. You can do your own Google research to prove that. But what I tried to communicate here is my personal relationship with green tea. If that statement sounds a little other-worldly or super-spiritual, maybe it is. And if you think I am an evangelist for green tea, maybe I am. But if you want to know why I bothered to write this piece about green tea, I think it’s gratitude. I am thankful for a persistent family member who convinced me to try it and I am thankful to mother nature herself for providing such a wonderful, delicious, and healthy food.