Do you often enjoy tea time?

Do you often enjoy tea time?

When tea bags, which allow for easy brewing, are used incorrectly, they are known to release microplastics and heavy metals.

However, recent research has shown the opposite: that they can actually be a method for filtering heavy metals from water.

A research team at Northwestern University in the U.S. conducted an experiment to confirm the effect of tea leaves in filtering heavy metals from water.

After creating solutions containing heavy metals that can have harmful effects on the human body, such as lead, chromium, copper, zinc, and cadmium,

they steeped various types of tea leaves and compared the contamination levels before and after.

The results showed that even steeping a single tea bag for just 3 to 5 minutes could filter out about 15% of the heavy metals in the solution.

While black tea showed the best purification effect, the researchers concluded that the material of the tea bag was more important than the type of tea.

Tea bags made from artificial materials like nylon or cotton showed almost no purification effect and, in fact, released microplastics.

Tea bags made from ‘cellulose’, a plant-derived fiber, effectively filtered heavy metals.

The researchers explained that cellulose is a biodegradable natural material with a larger surface area for heavy metal particles to bind to.

This study also found that the longer a tea bag was steeped, the greater its effect in removing heavy metals.

However, the researchers noted that further studies are needed regarding what substances are released from tea bags steeped for extended periods, as this has not yet been investigated.

In fact, it was previously known that steeping tea bags at high temperatures for more than 2 minutes increases cadmium and arsenic levels.

The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in Korea also recommends steeping tea bags for only 2 minutes in 98-degree water.

Therefore, we need to await further research on this matter.

Source: Kormedi.com