Holly Helt explores the magic of matcha...
and why it’s the perfect complement to your yoga practice
T
here’s a reason monks started
to use matcha in ancient
times as a ceremony before
sitting for meditation. It was
either that or, as the tale goes,
cutting off their eyelids to keep them from
falling asleep.
Why? Because matcha is your perfect
partner when it comes to creating a state
of feeling harmonious, connected, in touch
with your inner self, focused, energised and
creative. Here’s how...
Japanese green tea, especially
matcha, contains extremely high levels
of polyphenols, which are a very broad
class of antioxidants. Of all the food and
beverages out there, Japanese green tea
has one of the highest concentrations of a
subgroup of polyphenols known as catechins
(pronounced cat-ah-kins). This is due to how
the Japanese cultivate and process their tea:
pluck the leaf, usually from a shade-grown
bush, and immediately steam it to lock in
the nutrients. Other tea-producing countries
allow the leaf to wither in the sun after
plucking, thus oxidising and changing the
nutritional content and flavour.Matcha
mindfulness
There are four main catechins
(antioxidants) in green tea but a very
special one is only found in green tea:
Epigallocatechin-3-gallate, or EGCG. This is
getting all the fanfare because of countless
studies showing that EGCG has myriad
health benefits including anti-ageing, cancer
preventing and making fat cells burst
through a process known as apoptosis.
The United States Department of
Agriculture (USDA) published the ORAC table
until May 2012 to measure the strength
of antioxidants in the foods we eat. This
table gave Japanese Matcha a score
of 1253, which completely outnumbers
the antioxidants in superfoods like goji
berries (253 score) and acai (60 score). But
antioxidants are only part of the reason why
Japanese green tea is off-the-charts healthy.The Theanine factor
Enter Theanine, an amino acid found in
the Camellia sinensis leaf – the only leaf
that can be called tea. All other plants are
technically not tea, but tisanes or infusions.
Theanine rarely shows up in anything else
in nature except the Bay Bolete mushroomand the holly tree. Luckily, green tea has
a lot of Theanine! Of the total content of
all the amino acids in green tea, Theanine
claims around 60-70%. This amino acid
is responsible for most of the flavour,
especially the sweetness, and is easily
detected when you sip tea because of the
way you begin to feel. And isn’t feeling good
also the reason you do yoga? You can’t
exactly feel antioxidants at work in your
body, you just believe they are doing their
job. Not so with Theanine. You can feel it!
Meditating monks knew that when
Theanine mingles with caffeine, it gives you
bliss and clarity, which is so pronounced
when you drink green tea. You need both
Theanine and caffeine in the proper ratio to
get that feeling. The Theanine and caffeine
combo also reduces physical stress and
gets the creative juices flowing. This is due
to how Theanine elevates dopamine levels
in the brain. The topic of caffeine in green
tea could be a book all on its own but in
a nutshell, caffeine in Japanese green tea
is slowly released into the bloodstream
thanks to metabolising the catechins so
you don’t get that jittery feeling followed byTea Special