Is oolong tea good for you?

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Why: I usually stick to green, but today I am drinking Pomegranate Oolong.

Answer: Yes! As I learned before, white, green, black, white and oolong tea are all made from the Camellia sinensis plant. The leaves and buds are just grown or processed differently.

Oolong tea can help:

• Diabetes! It may be an effective adjunct to oral hypoglycemic agents in the treatment of type 2 diabetes.
• Eczema! Patients with eczema improved after drinking a liter of oolong tea daily.
• Allergies! It has 2 catechin derivatives (C-1 and C-2) with potent antiallergic activity.
• Bacterial infections! Oolong tea polyphenols strongly inhibit the enzyme activities of some types of streptococci.
• Cavities! Polyphenolic compounds could be useful for controlling dental caries.
• Obesity! Drinking it stimulates both EE and fat oxidation in men of normal weight.
  
• Cancer! Oolong tea extract has a chemopreventive action against hepatocarcinogenesis.

Source: Best Buy Uniforms (in their "Chef" section)

The More You Know: Oolong is semi-oxidized, black tea is fully oxidized, and green tea is un-oxidized. Fresh tea leaves are high in catechins. Processing the tea reduces these levels - the more the tea is oxidized, the lower the catechin levels. This means that white tea has the highest levels of catechins and black the lowest.

Catechins are the media darling of green tea promoters and usually receive the most coverage when discussing the health benefits of tea. There is one point, however, which is often overlooked:

As the levels of catechins decrease during oxidation, the levels of theaflavins and thearubigins increase. These substances are found in higher concentrations in oolong and black tea and have anti-allergy, anti-inflammatory, and anti-cancer properties. A 2001 Chinese study indicated that the antioxidant properties of green tea and black tea are equal.