What is White Tea?

For those who are trying to lose weight, there is some interesting news concerning the relationship between the consumption of white tea and weight loss. For years people have been drinking green tea because of its health benefits, but now there is a growing interest in the possible health effects of drinking white tea as well. Because white is does not go through the fermentation process, and withstands less processing overall, there is a possibility that its benefits surpass even that of green tea. Let's take a look at white tea, and why it may be able to act as an aid for weight loss, and its other possible health benefits.

Green Tea Vs White Tea

We have known and heard about the high level of antioxidants that is in green tea. For years people have been making the switch from black tea to green because they have believed that green tea is healthier. Green tea does receive less processing, so it would be safe to assume that it retains more of its health benefits than black tea does. These assumptions have been verified through studies, and it appears that green tea lives up to many of its health claims.

Now there is a belief that white tea has even more antioxidants in it than green tea does, and that it may provide more health benefits. Considering that we are using green tea as the benchmark, saying that white tea is better for us is quite a claim. There have been studies that attempted to verify these claims, but research has been fairly limited up to this point because of the fact that white tea is a newer tea to the health conscious world. As more information becomes available, we can better judge whether white tea surpasses green tea, or if there is not much difference.

How Does White tea Affect Weight Loss?

To start answering this question about whether white tea will help you lose weight, you need to understand that white tea will not cause you to lose weight, but it will help. If your intentions are to lose weight, then you need to focus on exercising, and eating a healthy diet. There is no healthy magic drink that will melt the pounds off of you. See my article Calories and Weight Loss to see why we gain and lose weight. Also, the studies that have been performed are based on people who drank at least 4 cups a day. So, we can't determine the effects of drinking 3 cups or less of white tea during a day.

Now on to how white tea helps. White tea is claimed to increase the body's ability to burn calories more efficiently. Studies that have been performed verify that white tea does play a role in keeping the body from creating new fat cells. This should help the body lose weight more effectively than normal if the drinker was adhering to a proper diet, as well as regular exercise.

There are also claims that white tea may be a natural appetite suppressant. If you are struggling with your diet, then this would be a great reason to begin drinking white tea. The belief is that your moments of weakness will be less severe, and your hunger pangs will be subdued by drinking tea regularly.

A Few Other Benefits

So, we have seen that white tea may be used to help you lose weight, but what makes it really great is the other health benefits that it may give. White tea may have such benefits as lowered risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer prevention, a decrease in the risk of developing kidney stones, and a slightly smaller chance of developing osteoporosis. So, even if you don't lose the weight that you expected to lose, drinking a few cups of white tea a day could still be a very healthy choice.


As you can see, many of the health claims that white tea is said to have are very similar to green tea. Because it is not processed as much as green tea, there may be a possibility that these effects are amplified in white tea. As time goes on, and more studies are performed, we learn more about how white tea interacts with and benefits our bodies. In the mean time, there is no harm in drinking white tea, and the possibility of the great health benefits are too good to pass by.