Anhua Chinese Dark Tea （安化黑茶介绍英文资料）

Anhua Chinese Dark Tea

The tea only existing in Anhua, Hunan, China refers to Anhua dark tea which is gradually opened her mysterious veil to the world. Since ancient Times, it has never disappeared from view. In 2010, it successively made its debut in Shanghai World Expo and Guangzhou Asian Games, which proclaimed to the world the revival of Anhua dark tea. Moreover the soaring prices of dark tea evoked the curiosity of the public .Now Anhua dark tea has created a dark tea whirlwind in the international tea market .

1. 1. History of Anhua Dark Tea

Anhua dark tea has a profound culture background in the long tea history. As the birthplace of dark tea in China, Anhua has been the birthplace for the first Qianliang tea, Black Brick and Fu Brick. The key process of dark tea is still the secondary confidential information protected by our Country. In Tang Dynasty, it has become a tribute to the royalty; during the Ming and Qing dynasty, many places along the Zijiang River used to have prosperous dark tea market. The ancient Tea-horse Road which has been preserved well fully confirms that Anhua dark tea has ever played an important role in the tea-horse trade. Anhua was the center of Chinese tea market during the 500 years in Ming and Qing dynasty when its production accounted for 40% of dark tea in the whole Country among the five dark tea-producing provinces. After the liberation war, it was said that some minorities near the border never bought other dark tea but from Anhua.

1. 2. Health Benefits of Anhua Dark Tea

Since ancient Times, there is a tradition of tea treatment. It is recorded in ancient medicine book that people used aged tea to treat diabetes, dysentery and cold. According to the modern medical science,tea polyphenols, tea polysaccharide, tea saponin, amino acid, alkaloids and inorganic elements are beneficial to human being. Tea is a special beverage which can enhance human immunity and resists oxidation and aging, prevents canceration, lowers blood fat and regulates the metabolism. It is generally accepted that it is one of the top six healthy drinks in the world in 21^st century.

(1) Reduce fat, Lose weight, soften vessel and prevent CVD

Dark tea has excellent function on lowering blood fat, resisting blood clotting, promoting fibrinogen dissolution, inhibiting platelet aggregation, loosening vascular wall, increasing effective diameter of vessel, inhibiting the formation of atheromatous plaque in internal wall of aorta and coronary artery and achieve the goal of lowering blood pressure, softening vessel and preventing and curing cardiovascular diseases.

Dark tea is rich in tea polysaccharide which has the effects of lowering the blood fat and lowering the activity of the peroxide in blood. In 1990, the General Hospital of PLA had 55 veteran cadres who were hyperlipidemia patients drink dark tea constantly for 180 days(3g/d), the observation showed that 50 people had their blood fat and peroxide activity in blood obviously reduced.

An epidemiological survey shows that people who live in the northwest such as Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Qinghai keep the habit of drinking dark tea and benefit from dark tea for its outstanding functions in regulating blood fat, blood sugar, blood pressure and vascular sclerosis and controlling of body weight and figure.

(2) Anti-oxidation, anti-ageing, prolong life

The theory on the relation between free radical and ageing says that under normal physiological conditions, the free radical in the human body constantly generates and are constantly eliminated and then keep its balance. Dark tea contains not only abundant anti-oxidation substances such as catechin, tea pigment, flavonoid, vitamin C, E and D, carotene etc., but also plentiful complex flavonoid in dark tea have the function of eliminating free radicals, thus dark tea does well in anti-oxidation and anti-ageing.

(3) Anti-cancer and anti-mutation

Cancer is one of the deadly diseases in the world.

Since the late 1970s, scientists from various countries have successively found that teas or tea extracts have the function of inhibiting various cancers. Hunan Agricultural University has adopted cutting-edge high throughput screening technology to carry out the research on cancer cell model SGC7901 proving that dark tea has obvious function in inhibiting tumor cells.

(4) Reduce blood pressure

It has been reported that tea has function of reducing blood pressure. Recently, it is reported in Japan that theanine, a type of amino acid that is contained in tea can restrain the rise of blood pressure through activating dopaminergic neuron. In addition, it is found that caffeine and catechin in dark tea can soften vessel and diastole vessel to realize blood pressure reduction. Some authoritative experts including Professor Lou Fuqing found that tea pigment has outstanding functions in anti-coagulation, promoting fibrinolysis, preventing platelet from cling and gathering, restraining HASMC hyperplasia, and also has effective function in reducing triglycercide and LDL, heightening HDL and inhibiting ACE to realize blood pressure reduction.

(5) Improve saccharometabolism, reduce blood sugar, prevent and treat diabetes.

The tea polysaccharide contained in dark tea is the major element that can reduce blood sugar. The tea polysaccharide is a mixture of the same type of complex and changeable elements. The test result on tea polysaccharide content of several kinds of tea shows that tea polysaccharide content of dark tea is the highest and its components' activity is the strongest, because of the formation of comparatively short sugar chain and peptide chain which is easier to be absorbed and has stronger activity than short peptide chain through the action of glycosidase, protease and hydrolase contained in fermented tea. This is one of the reasons why the fermented teas especially dark tea has a better effect of lowering blood sugar than other teas.

(6) Diuresis, detoxication and reducing the harm made by tobacco and liquor

The diuretic function of Caffeine in dark tea is realized by boosting the leaching rates of water from urine through the kidney. Meanwhile, caffeine can not only stimulate the bladder and help urine, but also helps sober up and resolve toxins in tobacoo and liquor. Moreover, tea polyphenols in dark tea helps the precipitation of nicotine and it can eliminate the free radicals contained in the smoke and reduce the toxic effects of smoke on the human body. Drinking dark tea can alleviate toxic effects of heavy metals as tea polyphenols has a strong adsorption function.