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Green Tea, Matcha Tea
When you drink matcha you consume the leaves, unlike other green teas. For this reason matcha contains, by volume, higher concentrations of catechins and vitamins. There are 2 types of matcha- koicha and usucha. These are chanoyu (Japanese Tea Ceremony) terms and literally translate as "thick" and "thin" tea. Usucha comes from the leaves of tea plants that are less than 30 years old. Koicha comes from the first harvest of plants that are a minimum of 30 years old.
In tea ceremony koicha is brewed with less water than usucha. Koicha has a naturally mellower and sweeter taste and the tea is made thicker for that reason. Matcha preparation is personal, and there are no rules outside of Tea Ceremony. Well, there is one rule- don't use boiling water. That's all! If you are new to green tea it may take you 2 or 3 attempts to find the concentration that is right for you. Koicha when prepared in tea ceremony is very thick, like syrup. If you use usucha for this the tea would be somewhat bitter.
Most customers do not prepare matcha to the syrupy thickness of tea ceremony koicha. While there is a qualitative difference between the 2 (thick tea is composed of the highest quality leaves) there is also a significant difference in cost. If you have not tried matcha before we recommend that you purchase our inexpensive usucha first and see if you like matcha. Matcha comes from gyokuro leaves that have been steamed and dried. All stems and veins are removed from the leaves. The pure dried leaves (tencha) are then stone ground into a super fine powder that is the consistency of talc. Matcha is uniquely Japanese.
More info on Matcha and other Japanese Tea's…
Determination of catechins in Matcha Green Tea by micellar electrokinetic chromatograpy
Weiss DJ, Anderton CR.
Department of Chemistry, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, Colorado Springs, CO 80918, USA. dweiss@uccs.edu
Catechins in green tea are known to have many beneficial health properties. Recently, it has been suggested that matcha has greater potential health benefits than other green teas. Matcha is a special powdered green tea used in the Japanese tea ceremony. However, there has been no investigation to quantitate the catechin intake from matcha compared to common green teas. We have developed a rapid method of analysis of five catechins and caffeine in matcha using micellar electrokinetic chromatography. Results are presented for water and methanol extractions of matcha compared with water extraction of a popular green tea. Using a mg catechin/g of dry leaf comparison, results indicate that the concentration of epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) available from drinking matcha is 137 times greater than the amount of EGCG available from China Green Tips green tea, and at least three times higher than the largest literature value for other green teas.
Inhibition of urinary bladder tumors induced by N-butyl-N-(4-hydroxybutyl)-nitrosamine in rats by green tea.
Sato D.
Second Department of Urology, Toho University of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan.
BACKGROUND: Recently, the anticarcinogenic effects of green tea have been studied in sites other than the urinary tract. The present study examined the inhibition by green tea of vesical tumors induced in rats by N-butyl-N-(4-hydroxybutyl) nitrosamine (BBN).
METHODS: In the first series of experiments, 0.05% BBN was added to the drinking water of rats and remained present for 5 weeks. In one experiment, six groups of animals received either tap water, green tea, matcha, hojicha, oolong tea or black tea from week 6. In a second experiment, three groups of rats received either tap water, green tea extract or powdered green tea mixed into a pellet diet from week 6. In a third experiment, five groups of rats were fed a pellet diet with addition of either 0, 0.15, 1.5 or 3.0% powdered green tea from week 6. All rats were killed and examined at 40 weeks.
RESULTS: Green tea, particularly green tea leaves, dose-dependently inhibited the growth of BBN-induced urinary bladder tumors when given after the carcinogen.
CONCLUSIONS: Green tea may inhibit bladder tumor growth.
Effect of green tea (Matcha) on gastrointestinal tract absorption of polychlorinated biphenyls, polychlorinated dibenzofurans and polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins in rats
Morita K, Matsueda T, Iida T. Fukuoka Igaku Zasshi. 1997 May;88(5):162-8
Fukuoka Institute of Health and Environmental Sciences, Japan.
This paper presents the liver distribution and fecal excretion of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB), polychlorinated dibenzofurans (PCDF) congeners and polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDD) congeners, in male rats fed with powdered green tea (matcha).
The rats were given a treatment diet containing 10% matcha for the first five days. Then, the animals were administered 4 g of 10% matcha diet containing 0.5 ml of the casual rice-bran oil of Yusho that had occurred in the Southwest part of Japan in 1968 and kept on the same diet for another five days. The fecal excretion of PCB, PCDF and PCDD in the group fed with 10% matcha were 4.4, 2.4-9.1 and 2.5-4.7 times higher (p < 0.01), respectively, than that in the control group. The liver distribution of PCB, PCDF and PCDD in the same groups were 79%, 20-75% and 26-67% of the control group, respectively. These findings suggest that administration of matcha is useful as a treatment of Yusho patients exposed to PCB, PCDF and PCDD.
Prognostic significance of selected lifestyle factors in urinary bladder cancer.
Wakai K, Ohno Y, Obata K, Aoki K.
Department of Preventive Medicine, Nagoya University School of Medicine.
To examine the prognostic significance of lifestyle factors in urinary bladder cancer, we conducted a follow-up study of 258 incident bladder cancer patients, who were originally recruited in a case-control study in metropolitan Nagoya. Information on individual survivals was obtained from the computer data-file of the tumor registry of the Nagoya Bladder Cancer Research Group. Univariate analyses revealed significant associations of 5-year survivorship with educational attainment, marital status, drinking habits and consumption of green tea in males, and age at first consultation, histological type and grade of tumor, stage and distant metastasis in both sexes. After adjustment for age, stage, histology (histological type and grade) and distant metastasis by means of a proportional hazards model, drinking of alcoholic beverages was significantly associated with the prognosis of bladder cancer in males. Its adjusted hazard ratio was 0.46 (95% confidence interval: 0.26-0.79), favoring patients who had taken alcoholic beverages. In detailed analysis, ex-drinkers and all levels of current drinkers demonstrated hazard ratios smaller than unity, although no clear dose-response relationship was detected. No prognostic significance was found for such lifestyle factors as smoking habit, uses of artificial sweeteners and hairdye, and consumption of coffee, black tea, matcha (powdered green tea) and cola.
Case-control study of urinary bladder cancer in metropolitan Nagoya.
Ohno Y, Aoki K, Obata K, Morrison AS.
We conducted a population-based case-control study of patients with bladder cancer and of controls drawn randomly from the general population of Metropolitan Nagoya and interviewed both groups. The incidence rates of bladder cancer were 2.42 and 7.05/100,000 for females and males, respectively. The analysis, based on 293 patients and 589 controls who were frequency matched for age, sex, and residence, provided the following major findings. Age-adjusted relative risks of 1.89 (1.15-3.10) and 3.53 (1.71-7.27) were found in male and female cigarette smokers, respectively. Significant relative risk was also found in males who drank cocoa. Elevated risk with a dose-response relationship was observed among women who used hair dye and who smoke, but this risk was insignificant, with the disappearance of a dose-response relationship, when it was adjusted for smoking. Age- and smoking-adjusted relative risk of coffee drinking was insignificant with no dose-response relationship. Relative risk of artificial sweetener use was below 1 with adjustment for age and smoking. Intake of alcoholic beverages and cola was insignificantly associated. Reduced risk of significance was suggested for the intake of black tea and matcha (powdered green tea) in females and of fruit juice in males.
Green tea consumption and serum lipids and lipoproteins in a population of healthy workers in Japan.
Tokunaga S, White IR, Frost C, Tanaka K, Kono S, Tokudome S, Akamatsu T, Moriyama T, Zakouji H. Department of Preventive Medicine, Graduate School of Medical School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan.
PURPOSE: To examine the relation between green tea consumption and serum lipids and lipoproteins.
METHODS: The subjects were 13,916 workers (8476 men and 5440 women) aged 40-69 years at over 1000 workplaces in Nagano prefecture, central Japan. They underwent health screening offered by a single medical institute between April 1995 and March 1996 and did not have morbid conditions affecting serum cholesterol levels. Serum concentrations of total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and triglycerides were measured at the screening. The consumption of green tea and other life-style characteristics were ascertained by a questionnaire. The data were analyzed with multivariate linear model.
RESULTS: Daily consumption of green tea was reported by 86.7% of subjects. Green tea consumption was, statistically, significantly associated with lower levels of serum total cholesterol in both men and women while its associations with serum triglycerides and HDL cholesterol were not statistically significant. The inverse association of serum total cholesterol with green tea consumption appeared to level off at the consumption of more than 10 cups/day. Excluding the outlying subjects drinking more than 10 cups/day (0.4%), the regression analysis adjusting for age, body mass index, ethanol intake, smoking habit, coffee intake, and type of work showed that daily consumption of one cup of green tea was associated with a reduction in serum total cholesterol by 0.015 mmol/L (95% confidence interval 0.006 to 0.024, p < 0.001) in men and 0.015 mmol/L (0.004 to 0.025, p < 0.01) in women. After additional adjustment for selected dietary factors, the inverse association remained statistically significant; one cup of green tea per day was associated with a reduction in serum total cholesterol by 0.010 mmol/L (0.001 to 0.019, p = 0.03) in men and 0.012 mmol/L (0.001 to 0.022, p = 0.03) in women.
CONCLUSION: Consumption of green tea was associated with lower serum concentration of total cholesterol in Japanese healthy workers age 40-69 years; however, green tea consumption was unrelated to serum HDL-cholesterol and triglycerides.
Studies:
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