Want to Take Toxins Out of Your Water? Try Tea

You may have heard the health hype around tea before. It’s nutritious! It helps you hydrate! It can boost your immune system! New studies show there’s one more flex your morning cuppa can add to its resume. It can trap toxic material in water before it reaches your body. 

When tea leaves are steeped in hot water, they release chemical compounds that give the drink its unique taste and color. Researchers have found that even as tea leaves give up flavor molecules, they adsorb toxins from the water. 

Note that spelling. To “adsorb” means to trap on the surface, rather than “absorb” into the leaf itself. Adsorbing is one of the things tea leaves do best. They are especially good at trapping trace amounts of harmful heavy metals. These include arsenic, lead, and cadmium. 

“You’re taking the metals out of the water with the tea, but you don’t consume the tea leaves after, which is why it works,” Benjamin Shindel, lead author of one of the studies, told The Washington Post. Shindel's a materials scientist at Northwestern University.

Much like when you’re trying to brew a tasty tea, the longer the steep, the better the result. Steeping a cup for five minutes led to a moderate decrease in lead levels. But an overnight brew, often common with iced tea, produced much better results.  

Most teas, whether black or green, performed alike. But flower-based teas like chamomile didn’t do the job as well. And experts note that any health benefits of drinking tea are likely to be offset if it’s packaged in a nylon or other plastic-based bag. These tend to release harmful microplastics into your drink. 

Reflect: If you could create a drink that improves health in a surprising way, what would it do and how would it work?

Gif of tea pouring from GIPHY.