It might interest you that in some studies the relatively cheap “Temple of Heaven, Special Gunpowder” is used. In a recent study they used an infusion time of 45 minutes .

“What was really exciting about this study was that we found when green tea is digested by enzymes in the gut, the resulting chemicals are actually more effective against key triggers of Alzheimer’s development than the undigested form of the tea,” explained Okello

“In addition to this, we also found the digested compounds had anti-cancer properties, significantly slowing down the growth of the tumour cells which we were using in our experiments,”

doi:10.1016/j.phymed.2010.11.004

Indeed there are many scentific researches in the world to confirm the prevention benefits of anti-oxidants from green tea; but I have serious worry about having tea infused more than 10-15 even 20 minutes as means for ‘treatment’.

The taste of long infused tea is very bitter, some are even aggressive to the stomach, which I wonderful how many cancer patients have strong stomach to take it during the chemo treatment period?

One thing I notice from my late Father who was a cancer patient, when he went through the chemotherapy, basically the process caused a lot of problem for his body, for example he couldn’t eat but could only drink rice water or soup; he was very weak. I am sured the modern cancer treatment technologies have improved a lot that can ease those painful reactions from cancer patients a lot, but still how to help them to improve the absorbtion of nuitions during and after the treatments should be divided a little bit but not putting them in one basket.

Because I did not read the original research report from Dr. Servan-Schreiber and Dr. Beliveau, so I can not make any judgement. I do, however, have great deal of concern how that writer referred to Dr. Servan-Schreiber and Dr. Beliveau’s writing and suggested the long infusion time for tea, because it would cause further problem particularily for those who are taking the chemo treatment. May be in the later healing and strengthening phases but again it is subject to the health condition of patient to patient. Even that I think cancer patients should learn listening to their body and treat their body, starting from stomach and intestion, with care.

Chinese drink tea to serve the prevention purpose for more than 4000 years. Even people who have good stomach and normal condition should avoid drinking very strong and bitter tea. I think this is important. Appreciate your comments to my Today’s blog “Why controlling the infusion time is important” (http://www.tea-antwerp.be/blog)