Sunday, March 1, 2009

Wu Long or Wu Yi Tea for Beautiful Skin?

By Caitlin Ryan

Did you know that merely drinking a few delicious mugs of tea per day can boost the quality of your skin and fight premature aging? Wu yi tea has been drunk for centuries in the Asian world and thankfully, it is finally catching on in the Western world. Its age-fighting capabilities are remarkable! It may be YOUR answer to maintaining youthful skin!

Wu long and wu yi tea varietals have become all the rage in both the weight loss and age-fighting arenas. Both teas are highly beneficial in improving overall health, but is one better than the other? To answer this question, let us look at the origin of tea.

Tea begins as a plant called camellia sinensis. The tea leaves are picked at different times and then prepared in different ways. The four major teas are black tea, green tea, white tea and oolong tea and they are fermented in different ways or harvested at different times.

Green tea and white tea are highly nutritious because they are not fermented and none of their natural properties are destroyed. However, they are both pretty grassy tasting and not a lot of people enjoy their flavor. White tea is slightly more delicate merely because it is picked earlier than green tea. Though black tea is the most popular in the Western world because of its mild flavor, it is not as nutritious because it has been fermented for too long to maintain the same nutritional values.

Oolong seems to be the answer to this dilemma. You do not have to sacrifice flavor or age-fighting capability with oolong tea because it is fermented for a short time to produce a better flavor and aroma, but not long enough to destroy its nutritional value. Both wu long and wu yi teas are oolong teas, but wu long is harvested during the first plant cycle.

Tea salespeople would have you believe that this makes a huge impact on the flavor and quality of the tea, but wu yi and wu long tea are similarly flavored AND they both are capable of promoting youthful, healthy looking, radiant skin! The main difference? Price! Wu long is more expensive.

Tea can be compared to wine in this manner. Though there are some lovely wines available for $50 or more a bottle, if you can purchase a $20 bottle of Shiraz that is quite enjoyable, why spend $50? At the same time, you probably would not find the same enjoyment with a bottle of Shiraz that cost $5, right? For this reason, you probably will not find a lot of wu yi tea on the supermarket shelves next to the economy packs of black tea!

It does not matter whether it is wu yi or wu long tea when it comes to fighting free radicals and preventing premature aging. Tea contains highly powerful antioxidants that improve your skin health by eliminating free radicals and the damage they incur. For this reason, your skin will remain youthful for far longer when free radicals are not able to break down collagen and cause wrinkling, sagging skin.

Antioxidants in wu yi tea are necessary for skin cell replenishment. Wu yi tea has a lovely aroma and flavor that calms the mind.

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