This morning I had a nice white tea. I won't mention what brand or kind just yet, as I'll be reviewing it later on, but it is very good for a bagged tea. Anyway, it instilled in me such a sense of calm and wellbeing that I knew there had to be some sort of chemical coursing through my brain.
So today's post is all about L-theanine. Sounds exciting, right?
L-theanine is a lovely molecule that acts as a neurotransmitter in the human brain, specifically one that makes you feel goooooooood. It is responsible for the calming effect that many people feel upon having a good cup of tea, even though this effect is contradictory to what one would expect in a beverage containing caffeine.
The Chinese have known about this effect for centuries, if not millennia. I'm not one to buy into something just because people have been repeating it for years, however, as that kind of reasoning pretty much stopped anyone from questioning Galen's and Hippocrates' methods for so long, and what gives Rush Limbaugh his staying power (volume and frequency of repetition are also factors with him).
So is there actual proof?
"L-theanine significantly increases activity in the alpha frequency band which indicates that it relaxes the mind without inducing drowsiness."Read the whole study here
Voila. The reason you don't get the jitters after consuming tea (even a LOT of it) is because the L-theanine counteracts it by calming you down. As with most of the chemical constituents of tea, black tea has the least, and green tea the most, with higher quality teas having higher levels of it (but this doesn't mean black tea won't calm you). Japanese Gyokuro, in particular, has a lot of theanine in it. The plants are shaded a couple weeks before harvest, which causes the plants to produce more theanine.
So far there's nothing to indicate that consuming a lot of theanine is harmful, so drink to your heart's content.
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