Caffeine For The Soul

In this era of health gurus and hale shishyas, the question "coffee, tea or me?" may not be downright facetious. Any hunk plumping for the third choice should fortify himself with tea first, if adman and tea-freak Prahlad Kakkar is to be believed. Kakkar, busy brewing interest in Mumbai’s revamped Tea Centre, says: "Everybody asks me how I don’t look my age." His reply: "It’s because of tea. Keeps you horny." Kakkar’s guffaw is, however, not meant to muffle the seriousness of his reply: "The Brits stole tea from China, ran across the border to plant it in Assam, claiming it as their own. The best was sent off to Europe (which even now sips the fragrant varieties) while we had only left-overs."

Such devotion fermenting in tea’s favour keeps coffee aficionados busy blending their own health lists. Bulky literature on both steams up debate. The enthusiasm of a Kakkar is matched by a coffee devotee in Farzana Contractor of Afternoon Despatch & Courier. If tea is rich in anti-oxidants (the good guys of cellular life combating the bad guys of disease and damage called free radicals), coffee too has traces of it. If tea (particularly the green variety) bolsters the heart, coffee jousts with gallstone formation. Both are gulped by those on the graveyard shift (studies show healthy alertness in consumers of either). If caffeine isn’t admissible in a health dictionary, it smears a tea cup too (a cup of coffee contains 50-150 mg of caffeine while 50 mg of it can be found in a cup of tea). Sip for sip, both are evenly poised in the battle for the consumer’s lip. For every Tea Centre (or Cafe Churchill which offers apple- or peach-flavoured tea) there’s a Coffee Shop tucked away in a corner of the Crossword bookshop where Espresso or Cappuccino acquires cerebral flavour.

Alongside American jeans and junk food, India has imported its health concerns, converting many human carnivores into herbalists. V. Prakash, director of Mysore-based Central Food Technological Research Institute (cftri), says: "Once a simple drink, tea or coffee today has entered the realms of high scientific work. Each ingredient in either goes through the surgery of science, contributing to a volcanic eruption of information." Thus confounding choice.

So, while svelte models fuss about drinking only ‘decaf’ stuff as they swill diet coke, tea has upped the ante. It’s figuring in the do’s lists of newspapers and magazines, quenching readers’ thirst for a healthy drink. Have tea and conceive. Have tea to ward off heart disease (by decreasing the deadly clots in blood vessels), lung, skin and stomach cancers. Tea also fights ageing and dental decay. The cuppa has the best catchwords from a health maniac’s handbook-polyphenols like catechins, flavonoids-knights-in-shining-armour for the cells (see table on flavonoid content). Flavonoids "armourplate" the cells against ill-effects of UV light and cell ravages that cause 50 diseases. Also reason why tea is, after water, the most consumed drink in the world.

The Bangalore-based Tea and Health Information Centre crows: "Tea drinking increases central nervous system (CNS) activity and maintains this at a constant level throughout the day." The Coffee Board, also based in the same city, stakes similar claims, although for its own produce: "Coffee stimulates the CNS and improves your mental performance by increasing speed at which the brain processes data."

R.R. Krishnaswamy, director of diagnostic service at Manipal Hospital and convenor of the scientific advisory centre of tea and health, reverts to the for-tea-against-coffee argument: "Coffee is a stimulant, tea a relaxant. A Dutch study shows tea has mild beta-blocker activity (research is in infancy). Another study on women shows a three-four cup daily intake significantly reduces arteriosclerosis (arterial thickening) incidence." And anti-oxidant content in tea is higher than even a luscious orange. Tea is also believed to battle against elements that cause arthritis and several cancers-including breast, colon, oesophagal and gastric.

The Coffee Board isn’t on the retreat. A barc study reintroduces coffee as a shield against radiation ravages. It insists there are no links between coffee and lumps in the breast, delayed conception, spontaneous abortion, osteoporosis (loss of bone mass), heart ailments or cancers. A few cups, in fact, may hinder heart attacks, it quotes an Australian study as saying. The board’s defence of coffee, drafted by research director R. Naidu, is as sound as that for tea.

However, nutritionist and slimming guru Anjali Mukherjee casts her vote for tea: "Both are stimulants. But coffee has more caffeine, while tea has more anti-oxidants and body phenols. Green tea has more benefits-it’s rich in Vitamin C."

But another nutritionist roots for coffee. Kusum Oberoi maintains caffeine keeps the mind alert because it resembles a chemical brain substance called adenosine. Perhaps preferences sprout from simpler reasons, guesses tea planter Anil Dutt: "You can see particles of coffee after it is brewed while tea remains glass clear."

Like any product which offers a "lift", coffee too has its downside. In unattractive quantities, it can cause the infamous "coffee nerves", diarrhoea, fever, chill and confusion. Hundred cups in a row can, actually, be fatal. Caffeine causes 30 per cent decrease in blood flow to the brain while acute doses of it heighten depression in clinically diagnosed patients, though they "inversely affect suicidal tendency" (meaning, after a cup of coffee one who contemplates suicide may decide to live, after all).

Farzana Contractor may not agree to such a description. But when her car pulls up at the Churchgate signal, the coffee bite nips her blood. She succumbs, calling up her office to keep a steaming cup ready. And she drinks it through the day, never mind the doomsayers. "Deepak Chopra says what your mind wants your body adjusts to accept it. I am not an hypochondriac. I am not fanatical about health. In fact, am oblivious of it. And I must drink coffee." Only filter-coffee, she qualifies, happy being an addict.

Since it does not store up in the body, withdrawal symptoms are rather mild-mainly headaches and lethargy. With such contradictory studies on tea and coffee doing the rounds, "doing my own thing" as Contractor does may just be the right answer. A view Sharada Dwivedi, scholar, subscribes to. She has given up her addiction to black coffee for the delicate nip in Earl Grey, from Darjeeling.

cftri’s Prakash feels that "good or bad effects of both beverages shouldn’t be seen in isolation". And moderate tea or coffee drinkers need not be unduly concerned over the debate. The keywords, according to Prakash, are moderate and lifestyle.

Through history, both coffee and tea have been battered and blessed-sometimes as harmful stimulants, at other times as medicinal beverages. A stray tea leaf (camellia sinensis) wafted into Chinese emperor Shen Nung’s pot of boiling water and he anointed it as a health drink. Coffee beans (coffea canephora) was noticed by monks, gobsmacked by the rowdy behavior of goats which had consumed them. While addicts of either will overlook studies to sip and savour their favourite drink, health-buffs should perhaps learn to juggle the cups-one of coffee to fight colon cancer, the other of tea to nix rectal cancer!