Pu-erh tea has drawn some serious attention recently on the stage of natural nutrition and health, solely due to it’s portrayed potential to help to deal with one of the most stubborn yet pandemic issue of our society - overweight.

How much truth is in it? And there is any, how can we make the most of it? Let’s have a closer look.

What is pu-erh tea?

Pu-erh tea is one of the vantage Chinese beverages that has been consumed in China since Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD). It originated from the Yun-Nan Province of South-West China. It quickly turned into a commodity due to the high demand and was traded both locally and elsewhere.

Ancient Chinese pu-erh teaThe original and unique cake form not seen in any other teas was invented to facilitate its transportation at the time. Without roads or vehicles, they were for long time carried by human porters (image source from http://asiawheeling.com/?p=4266) out of the mountain ranges before being transported on the roads by animals such as horses and traded in areas like Tibet. It was born as a much loved beverage, known to aid in digestion.

More info about Pu-erh tea at: Pu-erh tea info

Is there any evidence that Pu-erh tea helps to lose weight?

The good news is YES! There have been some extensive researches conducted during the last 20-30 years of Chinese teas for their natural nutrients and health benefits with an attempt to combat many life style related health conditions away from pills and surgical knifes, such as cancers, cardio-vascular diseases, diabetes, inflammatory diseases and obesity. Pu-erh is one of them. The main active compound is believed to be a group of polyphenols (EGCG, theaflavins).

More information on Pu-erh tea and weight loss research reports at: Scientific evidences of Pu-erh tea's weight reduction properties

How much weight reduction can be expected by drinking pu-erh tea alone?

With the numerous and consistent results published demonstrating the association between pu-erh tea consumption and significant reduction in various blood lipid (fat) elements such as plasma triglyceride, cholesterol, and LDL-cholesterol, there is limited info on how much body weight reduction was actually achieved by tea drinking alone.

From the information available 'How much weight reduction could be achieved by tea drinking?' the effects are moderate.

How to make the most of the Pu-erh tea when it comes to weight management?

Before this question is answered, I would like to point out a couple of commonly overlooked issues:

1. To reduce weight is one thing, to maintain it is another. Most of the dramatic weight reduction schemes currently out there are either not sustainable or potentially harmful to health, should it be through vigorous exercise, diet or laxative supplements.
2. Long term consumption of teas, Pu-erh tea being one of them not only helps to have the waist line under control, buy also yields many other health benefits such as preventing cancers and cardio-vascular diseases, anti-inflammatory and enhancing immune system etc.

So to leverage the most out of this wondering beverage, I recommend:

1. Consistency and long term use: Pick one or a couple varieties you enjoy most and make it a life style change. This is where the tea quality comes into the equation. I am not in any way suggesting to get used to something that is hard to tolerate. A low grade tea could be so, but a high grade tea is highly enjoyable and addictive. I grew up in the Fu Jian Province in China where Oolong and white teas are our specialities. My daughter started out some Pu-erh tea a couple of years ago and got the family hooked to it. It is a matter of getting hold of a GOOD tea.
2. Consume daily. There are many ways to make a pot of tea at home or in the office easy. For those who like the tea bags’ convenience, we even offer a tea infuser all-in-one which makes loose tea brewing as easy as teabags. For those who like cold teas, some of our customers brew a certain quantity in the morning and keep it in a jar in the fridge to be used throughout the day. If unsure, give us a call or drop an email and we will do our best to help.
3. Making other life style changes and make sure they are sustainable regardless how small they are: healthy diet, being active.

Finally, there are a few aspects that I sincerely love about pu-erh tea:

1. The raw tea is just as refreshing as the green teas and the ripened ones as smooth as the black teas.
2. Due to their unique post-fermentation property, you can get pu-erh tea at almost any stage of its fermentation. Generally speaking, the consumers who like green teas would prefer raw Pu-erh, and the black ter lovers would prefer ripened pu-erh. You can also have a product somewhere between depending on the age of the tea.
3. Pu-erh is the only group of teas harvested from tea trees instead of tea bushes. The leaves are significantly bigger and long lasting during brewing. For teas made of young tender leaves such as green and white teas, the most one can get out of one lot of leaves is 4-5 infusions. Some pu-erh teas on the other hand can be used repeatedly for up to 20-30 times. I personally find it being both economic and convenient.
4. In depth flavours. Pu-eh tea has it’s unique earthy/woody yet pure aroma like no others. It’s flavour is solid, complex, reliable and vivid. (Again, I am only talking about premium grade pu-erh teas here!)

So enjoy this unique beverage first and many of it's health benefits will come alone as by-products.

Chinese Oolong tea

Many tea drinkers now are quite aware of green teas, and black teas have been consumed in the west for quite some time, but what is Oolong tea?

Understand Oolong tea from the tea categorisation and production

Teas are categorised based on the degree of the fermentation during their processing. Oolong tea is a class of Chinese teas that are semi-fermented, between the unfermented green teas and fully fermented black teas. Oolong tea is a family of teas and is exclusively Chinese. It originated from the Fu Jian Province, South-east of China. There are currently three major areas in China that produce almost all Oolong teas in the world: the Fu Jian Province, the Guang Dong Province and Taiwan.

Oolong tea is believed to have originated in the Wu-Yi area of the Fu Jian Province. The translation of Oolong into English is Dark Dragon.

Oolong tea is a family of teas

Like all other classes of Chinese teas, Oolong tea is a family of teas. The degree of fermentation varies depending on the tea type, some are lightly fermented (eg Tie Guan Yin / Iron Buddha) and the others are substantially more fermented (eg Da Hong Pao and Phoenix Single Bush). Due to it semi-fermented nature, Oolong teas possess green tea’s refreshing properties and black tea’s smooth texture. The individual teas also have their individual unique aroma produced through their highly skilful processing techniques. Oolong teas have been long loved by tea lovers in China and worldwide. I will provide some detail description of individual/sub-group Oolong teas in the subsequent blog posts to assist the tea lovers to have a closer look and taste of the individual varieties, which are vastly different in many aspects. 

Use Pu-erh tea to lose weight:

Pu-erh tea is one of the most ancient Chinese teas. It has gained recent publicity due to its portrayed weight loss effects. Can pu-erh teas assist in weight loss and how effective they are? These are the questions the consumers would want to have answers of before they commit themselves.

What history and traditional wisdom tell us

Pu-erh tea originated from the Yun-Nan province, South-West of China. It was first traded on the local market in the Pu-erh area. It has since gone through many highs and lows, for example there was a production and trade peak during the late Qing and early Ming Dynasty, described as ‘up to a hundred thousand tea farmers working in the area at one time, harvesting and processing the teas’. Along with the flourishing of the production and trade, the tea started being exported. There were no roads in the mountains at that time. The teas were compressed into cakes or bricks, carried by human porters out of the mountains on trails before being loaded to horse backs to be fruther transported to areas like Tibet for trading.

The Tibetan diet is vastly different from the traditional Chinese diet, heavily meat and dairy dependent due to the local stock raising agriculture. Pu-erh tea has been consumed in this area for a long time, known to assist in digesting the 'hard to digest' food comsumed,  among many other benefits.

Scientific research of pu-erh tea’s weight reduction effects

There have been many recent clinical trials and reviews published in medical journals studing Pu-erh teas' weight reduction effects based on the tradtional wisedom. Following are some links for those who can tolerate scientific papers (warning: not as exciting as fictions, but evidences based!):

• The mechanisms of weight-cutting effect and bioactive components in Pu-erh tea: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22855451
• Improvements of mean body mass index and body weight in preobese and overweight Japanese adults with black Chinese tea (Pu-Erh) water extract: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21745623
• Mechanisms of hypolipidemic and anti-obesity effects of tea and tea polyphenols: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16404708

My opinion

I am a pu-erh tea lover and I drink it because I enjoy it more than anything: its earthy fragrance, smooth texture, refreshing after taste and the deep cleansing feeling afterwards. A cup of good pu-erh after a heavy/rich meal feels like drew from haven! As I consume it on a daily base, its many benefits including weight control are just natural by-products.

For those who intend to use it purely for weight control purpose, the trick is consistency and regularity. Like all other Chinese teas, there is a vast difference in the tea quality. Find a premium supplier and source a good quality product. Make it part of your healthy life style, including being active and eat healthy. As demonstrated above, both traditional wisdom and modern science have proven that pu-erh tea is effective in helping to lose and control weight and body fat deposit. You will feel the difference once it is taken up and starts replacing some of the conventional sugar rich drinks in your diet.

Can tea drinking reduce body weight?

There have been various researches conducted in recent years regarding the association between tea drinking and weight loss and the results are promising and consistent: all teas (beverages made of Camellia sinensis) are effective in assisting in weight loss.

The reason behind tea and weight loss is that tea increases body metabolism rate, thus energy expenditure. In addition to many other health benefits of tea drinking, mainly due to their high anti-oxidant content, assisting in weight loss is the driving force for many taking up tea drinking as a new lifestyle fashion. Tea however is not a cure nor a magic. It need to be combined with other lifestyle changes, such as healthy diet and being active to product long term sustainable and desirable results.

A few facts and tips for using tea to help with weight loss:

1. The difference in weight loss effects of different teas is minimum (more overlap than differences), should it be green tea, white tea, Oolong tea, black tea or pu-erh tea.
2. Take a long term approach for a desirable result. My advice to tea drinkers is always to pick a tea you really enjoy drinking and make it part of your lifestyle. The weight reduction and many other health benefits will come naturally as the by-products.
3. There are some herbal remedies which include conventional teas, such as our lotus leaf slimming tea which include 15% Oolong tea plus 5 other herbal ingredients recorded in Chinese medicine with weight reducing effects, are more potent than using one single tea (for example Oolong tea) alone.
4. For coffee and fizzy drink consumers, it is a good idea tying to replace some part of your daily intake by tea and gradually increase the tea proportion. 
5. Tea preparation is important when it comes to premium teas: you cannot improve poor quality teas, but can reduce the premium teas to a lower grade if not prepared probably. Tea preparation does NOT have to be complicated. Lean some basics and the rest is more personal preference than skills.
6. There are also tea accessories to facilitate loose tea (better quality generally speaking) drinking in the office, such as the tea infuser-all-in one: http://www.valleygreentea.com.au/tea-infuser/view-all-products.html

Conclusion:

Remember there is NO magic bullet for weight loss, but shedding a few kilos is absolutely achievable and sustainable. Taking small but consist and solid steps, as the Chinese ancient wisdom says ‘a river is made of individual small drops of water’!

We all know that to be able to achieve something, we needs to set goals. When it comes to trying to lose a few kilos, simply saying I would like to be 5 kilos lighter is not good enough.

I would recommend the first step being to set some goals of behaviour change that are achievable and sustainable, small ones that are not overly ambitious.

Weight gain and weight loss is a simple balance sum. If you lose 10g a day, you will lose 1kg in 100 days, the same with weight gain.

The three main areas a weight loss can be achieved without involving medical procedures:

• Diet
• Exercise
• Supplements

Some ‘not so hard’ behaviour change examples:

• Diet: Instead of eating dessert every day after dinner, reduce it to once every second day; instead of buy high energy take away lunch, pack yourself a salad/tuna lunch every second day, combined with a small treat to reward yourself.
• Exercise: Instead of being driven to the station to go to work, walk or park the car further away from the station; if at home, walk to the local shops or post office instead of driving. (I personal love bikes, time saving and exercise at the same time.)
• Supplements: natural supplements PROVEN to be effective are highly recommended. Because I am a tea lover, tea drinking to me is a must try. (We will publish a separate blog shortly on how to use different teas to assist in weight loss.)

It is obvious that all above changes are highly individual. The main target should be taking small, but achievable steps and follow them through. These steps hopefully will become habit changes of your lifestyle and here to stay. A negative weight balance not matter how small will eventually take you to your ultimate goal of weight loss.

To be avoided:

vigorous work outs that produce hunger and bigger appetite. The worst possible outcome of this is to lose your muscle mass and replace it by fat once this unsustainable regime has stopped.

A repeatedly inflated and deflated body is not anyone’s desire.

Weight management is a question, desire, dream, challenge, quest, game, journey, investment, and disappointment for so many in our date’s society.  For some commercial companies, this desperate yearning of being fit and healthy also becomes a profit making vehicle that only leads to an end that see either no result or unsustainable results. An article published today with a title ‘Why diets don’t work – three things you need to know (Sydney Morning Herald: http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/diet-and-fitness/why-diets-don8217t-work-8211-three-things-you-need-to-know-20140820-1069er.html )’ with an analysis of interaction between one’s mind and body, and how a desire is not necessarily leading to a desirable result, is a restatement of our previous blog ‘Weight management 1 – why we put it on? ’, with some further recommendation on how to achieve a successful result without breaking your back and pockets. This lead to what we have always also been advocating – making SUSTAINABLE lifestyle changes, should it be diet, exercise and supplements. It is an absolute heartache to see desperate people being led to false promises and the only lesson learnt is not to try again.

Weight management is an industry itself. As someone mentioned to me earlier, ‘as soon as you mention a weight loss product, the women (she surprisingly did not know that the long term consumers of our Natural Shape – Lotus Leaf Herbal Slimming Tea are just as many men are women) will have their hands in their purses immediately’.

Obesity is life style issue and is an inevitable by-product of our modern society, long working hours, high level of stress, lack of time for home cooking and excessive consumption of sugar rich beverages just to name a few. People look for solution naturally: some pay (pills, surgeries, pre-prepared frozen foods), some work hard (parks are full of working out people before and after business hours) and some simply give up (after failed attempts or unsustainable results). It is so easy said than done to just say ‘change your life style’. When you have bills to pay, you work. When you work, you do not have time to shop, cook, exercise, relax and when you are stressed, you reach out for comfort food. It is not my intention to offer advice here to quit work and live as a saint. There are however small steps to be taken as part of one’s comprehensive approach to combat this threat that has gone far beyond than just an image issue – it is turning into one of the biggest killers of our contemporary era.

The herbal slimming tea we offer is made of six traditional Chinese herbs all with slimming functions, but affecting human metabolism from various angles. The herbs have been proven by Chinese medicine to have not only slimming effects, but many other health benefits: for examples, reducing blood cholesterol level and thus preventing high blood pressure, enhancing body immune system, cancer preventive, anti-inflammatory and adoptogenic etc. See Lotus Leaf Slimming Tea for more information. When you are at work and stressed, instead of reaching out for a coffee or biscuits, make yourself a cup of warm herbal tea and drink as many to your heart’s content. We recommend to drink 3-5 tea bags a day to lose weight. Many of our customers drink less than that on a regular base for their health benefits. You may think to lose weight and stay healthy is too good to be true, yet this is what we (Chinese) have been doing for a long time. We believe both health and diseases come from what you put in your mouth and the theory has stood the test of time.

Understanding weight gain through human history.

Much attention is given to losing weight, with many techniques and approaches advocated. Why such an issue? The human body will gain weight when we consume more energy than we can expend. It’s a simple flow equation. For most of human history the odds were heavily stacked against this flow ever being positive or sustainable. For our unfortunate ancestors, food, especially high energy food was generally scarce or took lots of energy and risk to hunt down, had to be shared widely across the tribe, or would be putrid or stolen in a couple of days. It made sense to totally gorge when food was on. Bodies that could accommodate the additional energy had better survival rates during the inevitable shortages that followed. Those whose appetites and stomachs adjusted to accommodate larger meals when available, shortened survival odds. In more recent times human society, aided by labour saving devices of all sorts has tipped the battle for survival in our favour. The flow equation is now easily positive all the time for large numbers of people - especially in the west. The human body however remains as adapted as ever for those periods of food shortage, except they mostly now don’t happen! With all the food now so easily available, appetites expand with waistlines true to design. When we reduce the flow we immediately feel hungry. The body’s response from history is to attempt to maintain body size via increased appetite. Our brains complain - "just one more major food experience is normal - indulge and live!". I understand that people who deliberately “supersize” experience greater difficulties in getting weight off than anticipated. So what to do in the modern age when diets aren’t enforceable by “kind” mother nature? Our subsequent posts will attempt to discuss some strategies.