Microwaving Tea Could Bring Health Benefits: Is Everyone Convinced?

A hot cup of tea and a good book are all one needs to drive away the blues. While different ways of brewing tea are followed by people, a study asserts the health benefits of microwaving tea.

One the most popular ways of brewing tea is by using boiled water, vis-à-vis using water heated in a microwave.

However, a researcher has questioned this popular tea brewing practice and states that the best way of making green tea is by microwaving it. This has stirred a hornet's nest on social media, with people dissing the theory.

Microwaving Tea: Is It The Healthiest Way?

The study conducted by Quan Vuong, who works in University of Newcastle on the New South Wales Central Coast in Australia, found that brewing green tea in microwave is not only healthy, but it also tastes better than kettle-brewed tea.

The controversial topic was a part of his 2012 research, where he extracted compounds in the tea that would be beneficial for human health.

Vuong specializes in identifying and finding ways to add value to natural food products. To achieve this goal, he extracts bioactive compounds from the food products containing antioxidant properties.

"I focus on identification, extraction and purification of bioactive compounds from various natural sources, such as medicinal plants, native flora and marine materials, as well as from the waste generated by agricultural and food production," asserted Vuong.

Vuong's Association With Green Tea

Green tea, originally from China, is well-known for its various health benefits. Green tea is known to be rich in antioxidants, which reduces aging and is also popular for its supposed weight reducing benefits.

In 2008, Vuong started a four-year study focusing on green tea. The research looked into various ways of cheap, safe, and efficient methods of manufacturing or growing decaffeinated green tea and tea powder extracts.

By 2012, Vuong had successfully developed a "novel way to remove caffeine from tea," making it much healthier than it originally was. Moreover, Vuong also established some useful methods for the production of decaffeinated green tea, caffeine, and decaffeinated green tea powder, in a bid to meet evolving market demands.

Vuong used the Preparative High Performance Liquid Chromatography or HPLC system to isolate and purify the important components of green tea.

He demonstrated that under optimal conditions it was possible to isolate all-important bioactive compounds such as catechins and L-theanine for additional utilization.

Brewing Green Tea Vuong's Way

The practical implementation of Vuong's tea brewing method involves the use of microwave, in order to isolate as many compounds as possible.

Vuong suggests the following steps:

Step 1: First put water and the tea bag in the cup.

Step 2: Heat the water with the tea bag in microwave for 30 seconds on half power.

Step 3: Bring out the cup and let the tea sit for a minute.

The usage of this method not only makes the green tea tasty, but also ensures extraction of 80 percent bioactive compounds. Moreover the method is cheap and fast, as well as suitable for people given the hurried modern-day lifestyles.

Is Everyone Convinced?

Not everyone is in agreement with the researcher's methodology of brewing tea, especially those in the UK and Australia.

Rob Harris, a "tea lover" from Australia publicly acknowledged his disgust for microwaving tea and expressed the same on Twitter.

Vuong's methodology did not cut ice with the Twitterati and some even called microwaving tea a breach of human rights!