Researchers from Peking University have found out that drinking a cup of tea can not only improve your mood, but also enhance your cognitive function. This has an overall effect on improving your creative abilities.

The researchers recruited 90 university students for two experiments. In the first experiment, 50 participants were divided into two groups. One group drank a cup of black tea and the other drank a cup of water. Both groups drank the cups three minutes into their experiment. They were tasked with building a block design for a fictional toy factory within 10 minutes.

The researchers enlisted the help of 10 university students to act as “judges” for the block designs. They rated each design on an 11-point scale for “grandness,” “unification,” “aesthetic appeal” and “degree of innovativeness.” According to the results of the judges, the students that drank black tea scored an average of 6.54 points while the group that drank water scored an average of only 6.03 points.

In the second experiment, 40 different participants went through the same procedures as the first group. However, one participant in this new water drinkers group wasn’t given anything to drink. Their test was also different. The researchers asked the students to name a newly opened ramen shop. They had 20 minutes to come up with up as many “cool and attractive” names as possible.

Again, 10 different students were called in to judge the names based on “innovativeness” and “playfulness.” Just like in the first experiment, the tea drinkers scored higher at 4.11 against the 3.78 score of the water drinkers group.

“This work contributes to understanding the function of tea on creativity and offers a new way to investigate the relationship between food and beverage consumption and the improvement of human cognition,” wrote the researchers in the abstract of their study.

Make the most out of your cup of tea

Tea can be enjoyed in many ways, but there are some things that you can do ensure that your cup is as healthy as can be.

• Brew for 20 minutes — If you can stomach the bitterness, you can even brew tea for 30 minutes. While this may make for a strong-tasting cup, it also makes it highly beneficial. Research shows that brewing tea for 20 to 30 minutes extracts the maximum amount of bioactive compounds from it such as theanine and catechins.
• Opt for tea bags instead of loose leaf tea — While loose leaf tea may be loaded with more bioactives, tea bags may be better when it comes to creativity. For one, the leaves in tea bags are much smaller, which is believed to positively affect the extraction process. Secondly, tea bags tend to contain more stems, which contain more theanine than the leaves.
• Avoid shaking the cup — Doing this increases the number of tannins released into the brew, which causes the tea to taste even more bitter and may even inhibit iron absorption.
• Choose black — Green tea is considered to be the healthiest variety, but black tea usually has the highest caffeine levels. So for that additional creative push, go for black tea.

Superfoods like tea have varying nutritional profiles. To learn more about these health-supporting herbs, visit Herbs.news.

Sources:

DailyMail.co.uk

ScienceDirect.com

TheConversation.com

TheGuardian.com