Los Angeles Times
November 7, 2005
TEA, to China's 18th century Emperor Chien Lung, was more than a whistle-wetting pick-me-up: It was "that precious drink which drives away the five causes of sorrow."
Western businesses are banking on our buying into Chien Lung's sentiments. In addition to selling a cornucopia of loose green teas, they have distilled the brew's essence and added it to health bars, supplements, diet aids, gum, soft drinks and skin creams — even, in Asia, to Kit Kat candy bars.
Green tea is good for us: That mantra has been chanted in the West since the early 1990s, when studies reported that the infusion, sipped for centuries in China and Japan, appeared to help fight off cancers when drunk by lab mice or rubbed on their skin. Enthusiasm intensified after other studies revealed that green tea contained certain chemicals with cancer-fighting clout. Scientists rolled up their sleeves to figure out how it works.
Today, green tea imports are soaring.
"Ten years ago, 3% of imported tea was green tea. Now it's 12%," says Joe Simrany, president of the Tea Assn. of the U.S.A. "Most of that increase is based on the perceived health benefits of green tea."
So confident was one doctor-turned-green tea businessman that in 2004 he decided the time was ripe to petition the Food and Drug Administration to permit green teas to sport cancer-fighting health claims on their packages.
The FDA's response: tepid. At best.
In June, the agency ruled that there was "no credible evidence" green tea fights cancers of the stomach, lung, colon, esophagus, pancreas or ovary. The agency acknowledged that the evidence for tea fighting breast or prostate cancer was somewhat better, although it also said the link was "highly unlikely" because the evidence on humans wasn't conclusive enough.
