Could matcha make your day a little more ‘TEA-rrific’?
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.
Aren’t Matcha lovers ANNOYINGLY chill? Or are you the matcha head—and YOU’RE annoyingly chill!? What gives?
Green teas contain the amino acid theanine, which reduces stress. Matcha takes it up a notch with caffeine in the mix too.
Now… enter a study by Keiko Unno from the University of Shizuoka and team.
Participants were blindly assigned to matcha or placebo groups. They consumed three grams of matcha or placebo in water daily for fifteen days. Questionnaires and measurements of a salivary enzyme were used to assess anxiety and physiological stress.
Results? The matcha group had significantly lower values on the anxiety test than the placebo group. The significant decrease in the salivary enzyme was from the intake of matcha!
However, too much caffeine, would bust that up.
Either way, I can’t live without my zen in a plastic cup. With a few boba balls.
Reference: Unno, K., Furushima, D., Hamamoto, S., Iguchi, K., Yamada, H., Morita, A., Horie, H., & Nakamura, Y. (2018). Stress-Reducing Function of Matcha Green Tea in Animal Experiments and Clinical Trials. Nutrients, 10(10), 1468. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu10101468