Widely spread across the world, tea is one of the most popular beverages that people drink in the morning and throughout the day to get a dose of caffeine and relax. The Washington Post reported on a new study that showed tea leaves can naturally purify water from lead and other toxic pollutants.
Most tea research has focused on the effects of caffeine, its nutritional value, or comparisons with coffee, but scientists now claim that this stimulating beverage may have surprisingly beneficial properties for health, capable of removing hazardous pollutants from water.
A recent study published in the journal ACS Food and Technology demonstrated that tea leaves can naturally absorb heavy metals, filtering out harmful contaminants in water, such as lead, cadmium, and arsenic. Metals remain on the surface of tea leaves and can be easily removed by filtering or disposing of the tea bag.
The lead author of the study, Benjamin Shindel, explained: "You extract metals from water using tea, but then you don’t consume the tea leaves themselves, and that’s where its success lies." Although tea leaves release aromatic chemicals into the water, making the beverage tasty, it is also effective in removing metals from water.
Researchers tested various types of tea and brewing methods, finding that the longer the tea brewed, the more metals were removed. For example, steeping a medium cube of tea for five minutes reduced lead concentration by 15%, and this reduction was maintained for cubes with different initial lead levels.
It was also studied which types of tea could additionally provide benefits. Researchers tested black and green tea in bags, as well as whole tea leaves, including green, white, and black teas, and herbal teas. The study showed that processed tea leaves work better than whole leaves since the crushed leaves create additional surface area to attract contaminants.
The type of bag for tea also matters. Whole leaf bags for tea are biodegradable materials that are highly effective in absorbing metals from water, whereas nylon bags for tea, which can release microplastics, did not show good results. Paper tea bags showed limited ability to absorb, but the relative efficacy varied among different types of tea bags and types of tea "without significant variables for the supplementary time."
