The Benefits of Black Tea

I don't know if you noticed but most people refer to green tea when they are discussing tea and health. A customer asked me yesterday if there are ANY health benefits to black tea. You bet there are!! This is for all Assam & Ceylon lovers:

According to a study by University College of London researchers, drinking black tea lowers stress hormone levels of cortisol. "Just 50 minutes after a high stress event, tea drinkers, who had been drinking 4 cups of black tea daily for a month, had a 20% greater drop in cortisol than the placebo group. Blood platelet activation, which is linked to blood clotting and the risk of heart attacks was also lower for tea drinkers." (“Black tea soothes away stress,” Science Daily, October 4, 2006.)
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago stated that the polyphenols in black tea help inhibit the growth of bacteria that cause bad breath.
Mild burns such as sunburn can be treated with cold black tea. Soak a dishtowel in cold black tea and place the cold compress on the burn says Marie Savard, MD of the University of Pennsylvania. The phytonutrients will reduce the inflamed blood vessels. (Health News You Can Use At Home; Rodale 2008)
Black tea consumption has been linked to a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes.