Tea is often celebrated as a healthy drink, filled with antioxidants and other beneficial compounds. As any aficionado will tell you, however, the water can be just as important as the tea leaves themselves when it comes to a good brew.
This seems to hold true with its health impacts. According to a study at the University of Colorado Boulder, tea may be responsible for decreasing the death rate in England between 1761 and 1834 because it meant that more people than ever were boiling water. The study classified more than 400 areas in England by factors determining the availability of clean water relative to other population centers. It then examined mortality rates in these areas and found that during this period, mortality declined in places with both clean and unclean water, but areas with bad water tended to see an even larger decrease in mortality than those with good water. Why is that?
Well, the study suggests that it is largely thanks to the cheapening price of tea. In 1784, the tax on tea decreased from 119% to 12.5%! Within just a few years, nearly every person in England was drinking at least two cups of tea a day, meaning that they were more regularly boiling water and killing pathogens that cause diseases like dysentery. While the study stresses that we can’t know for certain the full effect on this surge in tea drinking, the correlation suggests the possibility that tea consumption was saving lives across the country.
Sometimes, healthy living can be intricate and challenging, but other times, it seems, things can be as simple as making a cup of tea.
