By Peter Jaret

In our household, tea marks the seasons. During the summer we keep a fresh pitcher of iced tea in the refrigerator—“sun tea,” we call it, brewed in a clear glass jar left out in the hot summer sun for a few hours. With the first chill of autumn, we instinctively switch to hot cups of orange pekoe or Earl Grey. Over the holidays we brew up strong tea and spice it with cinnamon sticks and licorice root. Come spring we tend to reach for green teas, flavored with mint or orange peel.

We’re in good company. Next to plain water, tea is the world’s most popular beverage. Enough is brewed, it’s said, to offer a cup to every person on the planet. In parts of China and Japan, where the pouring and drinking of tea has been refined into an art form, it’s not unusual for people to imbibe eight to ten cups a day.

Good for us, researchers say. “Tea is simply one of the healthiest beverages you can drink,” says John Weisburger, director emeritus of the Institute for Cancer Prevention/American Health Foundation in Valhalla, New York, and one of the world’s leading experts on tea. Just consider: Tea’s antioxidants, called polyphenols, can cut heart disease risk in half; and drinking tea protects people who’ve had one heart attack from having another. There’s good evidence that substances in tea protect against several forms of cancer. And now comes word that tea may boost immunity. According to researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, a substance in tea called L-theanine primes immune cells to attack invading bacteria, viruses, and perhaps even cancer cells.

Happily, it’s remarkably easy to take advantage of tea’s benefits. For one thing, you don’t have to worry much about which types to choose. Researchers now say that almost any kind of tea—green, black, white, or red—contains potent disease fighters. “Most studies first looked at green tea simply because the health benefits were first observed in Asia, where green tea is the beverage of choice,” says Jeffrey Blumberg, chief of the Antioxidants Research Laboratory at Tufts University in Boston and one of the country’s leading tea experts. “But findings from Europe and the United States show that black tea has the same health benefits.”

That makes sense, since both black and green tea come from the same plant, called camellia sinensis. Black tea is created when the leaves are allowed to oxidize—sometimes referred to as fermenting—which deepens their flavor. But if you heat the leaves to prevent oxidation, you get green tea.

Lately, another variety has hit specialty store shelves, white tea. It’s brewed from leaves and buds of the same camellia sinensis plant, but it’s the least processed of all teas because there’s no heating or oxidation. The leaves are picked one at a time, steamed, and dried. (Because it contains buds that are covered with fine silvery hairs, it brews up a pale grayish color.) A recent study at the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University found that white tea contains higher levels of polyphenols than green, perhaps because it undergoes less processing.

The biggest surprise to avid tea drinkers may be that all those heavenly herbal teas we love to sip don’t pack the same antioxidant punch, says Blumberg. The problem is that they usually don’t contain camellia sinensis leaves but rather blends of herbs and spices. There’s at least one exception: red tea, also called rooibos tea, which is made from the leaves of a South African plant called Aspalathus linearis. Recent studies show it to be unusually high in the antioxidants that protect against mutations in cells, creating a strong defense against cancer.

Black, green, red, or white—what matters more than the color of your tea is how long you brew it. Unfortunately, Americans tend to brew tea “by the eye,” according to Harold McGee, author of On Food and Cooking—removing tea leaves “just as the desirable color is reached, which may be a matter of a minute or less.” It’s well worth being a little more patient, says Weisburger. It takes about three minutes of brewing time to extract the polyphenols in green tea, and about four to five minutes for black tea, he explains. You’ll also enjoy a tastier tea that way: Connoisseurs say tea should be steeped for three to five minutes to bring out the full flavor of the leaves.

Iced tea is a great choice in warm weather, but because it’s usually made by pouring hot tea over ice, it tends to become diluted, which means fewer polyphenols per ounce than in hot tea. The easy remedy: Pour yourself a tall glass. If you have time, make your own iced tea; bottled teas are convenient and a better choice than soft drinks, but they contain only about half the polyphenols of fresh-brewed tea. The reason: These potent chemicals break down over time, especially when they’re exposed to light.

How much tea should you drink to get its remarkable benefits? Two cups a day will certainly lower cardiovascular risk, the evidence suggests. But drinking four or five may be even better. That’s when the anticancer effects of tea seem to kick in, says Weisburger, who’s been studying tea for almost a quarter-century. He drinks at least seven cups a day—enough, he says, to keep antioxidants at optimal levels.

There’s another reason for drinking plenty of tea all through the day. The polyphenols have a relatively short half-life—only about three to four hours. “In many parts of Japan and China, tea is consumed throughout the day, at meals and even as snacks,” says Blumberg. “That ancient habit has the happy effect of keeping polyphenol levels high all day—and could be one of the keys to these people’s very good health.” Cooking with tea

Tea and Rice Soup
Tea offers a great alternative to chicken or vegetable broths, adding an exotic flavor to this Asian-inspired soup.

3 cups jasmine rice
31¼4 cups water to boil rice
1 tablespoon salt
5 cups water
5 teaspoons loose green tea
1¼2 bunch bok choy, washed and thinly sliced
1¼2 bunch watercress
2 nori seaweed sheets, crumbled

Rinse the rice and cook in a rice cooker or boil in a pot on the stove. Bring the 5 cups of water to a boil, then add the tea and steep for three minutes. Strain the tea leaves. In individual serving bowls, combine a generous serving of rice with the bok choy, watercress, and seaweed. Add tea to make a soup.

Green Tea Ice Cream
All it takes to create this pale green, delicately flavored treat is to buy some vanilla ice cream and mix it with matcha, powdered green tea leaves. Making dessert doesn’t get any easier than this—if you can find the matcha. Check health food and specialty markets; it’s also available on the web. (Check out Ito En at www.itoen.com or Stash Tea at www.shopstashtea.com.) Adapted from Saveur magazine.

1¼4 cup matcha (powdered green tea)
1 quart vanilla ice cream

Thoroughly stir matcha into softened ice cream, and serve.

Pears Poached in Green Tea
The smoky flavor of green tea perfectly balances the sweetness of ripe pears in this unusual dessert. Adapted from Eating Well magazine.

11¼2 tablespoons green tea leaves
4 cups water
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon chopped crystallized ginger
1¼2 teaspoon pure almond extract
4 firm, ripe pears, peeled, halved, and cored

Boil water, let it cool for a minute, and then stir in tea. Steep for 5 minutes, then pour through a sieve to remove leaves. Return the tea to the pan, add sugar, ginger, and almond extract, and bring to a boil. Lower heat to simmer, add pears cut-side down, and poach until tender. Cool before serving.

Tea-and-Fruit Cake
Fruit cake is an ideal companion for afternoon tea. In this recipe, black tea adds a rich flavor to the cake itself. Adapted from www.tea.ca, the Tea Council of Canada.

1¼3 cup canola oil
3¼4 cup sugar
11¼4 cup brewed black tea
13¼4 cups unbleached flour
1¼2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1¼2 teaspoon nutmeg
3 tablespoons raisins
1¼2 cup pitted and chopped dates
1¼2 cup chopped dried figs
1¼2 cup almonds

Cream together the oil and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Add tea and mix well. Sift flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, and nutmeg and blend with the wet ingredients. Stir in the fruit and nuts. Turn mixture into a greased loaf pan. Bake at 350° for 35 minutes.