Does sugar or milk bind tannins rendering them useless?

There was a recent (in the last few months) bit of news about this, here's one link to an article.

No comment about India though, where they also add milk to their tea.

Melinda

I believe the whole point of using lemon in tea is to destroy tannins. I don't think sugar does anything other than to mask the taste. Milk I don't know... it certainly reduces the tannic effect dramatically but I am not sure if it is masking it or reacting with it.

Why do you want tea that is all nasty and tannic?

--scott

The link below contains two studies about drinking green tea with milk with some helpful tips.

A 2006 German study found that adding milk to black tea destroys its ability to protect against heart disease. Another 1984 study found that drinking tea with milk or sugar is helpful to those prone to stomach upset.

Green Tea and Milk

Green tea with lemon is also helpful to the stomach.

I like green tea with ginger and muscovite sugar ... yummy! O, try use a low grade green tea for this, high grade should really be enjoy on its own.

Julian

Do any of them point out that adding milk to green tea makes it taste really, really nasty?

I mean, I can understand why someone might want to do that to a tannic black tea... but greens?

--scott

Re: "Does sugar or milk bind tannins rendering them useless?"

I was just at a conference where we had a question & answer session with doctors from the Tea Research Institute in Sri Lanka. These questions were of course raised as in the past year it has been in the press a bit.

The research they had conducted indeed shows that using milk in your tea... whether black green or whatever (though why you'd use milk in green tea I don't know!?)... does indeed reduce the antioxident health benefits of tea, ie Polyphenols, catechins, theaflavins and thearubugins...

The question of affected Iron intake came up also: drinking tea reduces the intake of irons while consumed during meals high in iron (i.e. red meats) which can be an issue for pregnant woman... BUT... they also explained that drinking tea with a slice of lemon in turn counteracts that effect letting iron absorb correctly due to it's ascorbic acid, and milk having the same neautralizing effect (though on the other health benefits also I presume).

...by the way Tannins in tea it is still quite misunderstood... read this quote and more info at the following page

(very detailed faq on tea) " Tannins or tannic acid are not present in tea. Tea polyphenols were formerly referred to as tannins or tannic acids due to the similarities in the chemical structure. This has left many misguided notions about the effect of tea upon the human digestive system "

but do you know what the doctors at the end of the session said that was quite cool? at the end of the day don't be too concerned with the health benefits of tea, don't get hung up on it all... just enjoy your tea!

right on! there's always some new finding or research to credit or discredit tea ... regardless I'll keep drinking it like there's no tomorrow :o)

Jon