Black, Green or White?

Skip the black. Forget the green. The tea that packs the most antioxidant wallop is actually the palest of them all: white tea.

“Each type of tea offers unique flavors and health benefits,” noted Preventive Medicine Daily (PMD) so picking one over the poses what it calls a “happy dilemma.”

Part of the reason for the difference has to do with the preparation, PMD noted, since black tea is fully fermented, while green tea is not fermented at all. White tea’s advantage is that it undergoes minimal processing and contains the highest percentage of anti-oxidants.

“Although the term “fermentation” is often used when describing green tea processing, green tea is not actually fermented, but oxidized,” notes a tea lovers web site brewedleaflove.com. “Fermentation refers to the breaking down of organic material by bacteria or fungus, which does not happen during green tea processing, the site notes.

The leaves for all three teas come from one plant: Camellia sinensis, a small flowering shrub or tree. The first part of the name is in honor of Georg Joseph Kamel, a Moravian Jesuit missionary and botanist who researched medicinal plants in the Philippines; the second part, sinensis, means “from China.”

Leaves destined for white tea are not rolled or fermented. As a result, the untouched leaves sprout tiny white fibers that label it as “white” although, in the end, the liquid is actually pale yellow in the cup.

This small difference in how the leaves are handled makes several big differences in what the white teas offer nutritionally.

Tea contains no zero calories, protein, fat, carbs and dietary fiber, but it is rich in antioxidants such as polyphenols, tannins and flavonoids. The last are natural chemicals credited with tea’s ability to lower cholesterol, reduce the risk of some kinds of cancer, and even protect teeth against bacteria that cause cavities.

All fresh tea leaves are rich in flavonoids called catechins. Processing the leaves for the black and green teas releases enzymes that enable individual catechins to hook up with others forming new polyphenols (poly- many) that flavor the tea and may reduce the risk of heart disease because they appear to relax blood vessels. Because leaves destined for white teas are neither rolled not fermented, fewer of their catechins marry into polyphenols. As a result, repeated studies over decades show the plain catechin content of white tea is three times that of green tea. Black tea comes in a distant third.

This oddity matters because all those catechins seem to be really good news for humans. For example when researchers tested white tea’s ability to inhibit cell mutation in bacteria and slow down cell changes leading to colon cancer in lab rats, the white tea beat green tea, the previous champ.

Catechins in white tea may also weaken cells that break down bones, thus lowering the risk of osteoporosis, and in concert with tannins and natural fluoride in the leaves they may help to prevent the growth of bacterial plaque on teeth. Finally, laboratory test tube studies have shown that white teas can destroy lung and colon cancer cells, but whether this happens in people remains a question waiting for an answer.

Moving out to the body’s surface, white tea benefits skin. Twenty years ago, when scientists at University Hospital in Cleveland and Case Western Reserve University applied cream containing white tea extract to volunteers’ skin and sent the subjects out into the daylight, the creamed skin developed fewer pre-cancerous changes from the sun’s burning UV rays. As Atlanta nutritionist Christine Mikstas confirmed on the website MedMD in 2024, multiple modern studies show this to be true.

Alas, as always, nothing’s perfect. Tea, like coffee, does contain caffeine, less than coffee but enough to make some folks a bit jumpy and sleep-deprived. And last but by no means least, there’s lead, not an added ingredient but a naturally-occurring environmental contaminant. Tea plants absorb elements, including trace amounts of heavy metals as they grow. MedMD reports that some brands of tea– white, green and black–have levels unsafe for women who are pregnant or breastfeeding.