Research done by the scientists has proven that broadly accessed drinks could be a component that will help to get rid of heavy metals in the water system, as lead and cadmium are the primary harmful contaminants found in drinking water.
Apart from the other apparent benefits of drinking daily tea, scientists have come up with several new scientific insights that have an immediate impact on preventing, treating, and healing human diseases such as diabetes, heart ailments, and regeneration of cells. The other aspect is that a new study by scientists at Northwestern University has indicated that brewing tea is a natural process for extracting heavy metals through leaves, hence cleaning the water.
In February, the researchers published their work in the journal ACS Food Science & Technology, where they explained how tea could be used as a natural filtration system to improve water quality.To prove that point, they grew many types of tea—black, green, oolong, white, chamomile, and rooibos—and then tried steeping each of them separately in boiling water. Consequently, they made water solutions with "defined quantities of lead and other metals," and then they heated the solutions to below boiling. At the end, they put the leaves inside and let them steep for short or long periods in between seconds and a full 24 hours.
Following the series of steepings, the researchers analyzed the metal content in the water. The study demonstrates that cotton or nylon tea bags that had the very least amount of leached contaminants, despite the opposite for those made out of cellulose—frequently of biodegradable wood pulp—"seemed to surpass all expectations. " As researchers discovered, these bags have a high surface area that results in more surface area for heavy metals to attach to. "The cotton and nylon bags, more or less, do not eliminate the heavy metal out of water," said Benjamin Shindel, who is the study's initial author. "Nylon tea bags can be bothersome because they are made from microplastics, but most of the tea bags in use today are made from a natural polymer called cellulose. They may emit some micro-particles of cellulose, but these are only fibers, and the human body can automatically pass them."Tea researchers also made a note that the best results were got from black tea leaves as well, and mainly it is coarse tea leaves. One of the reasons for this is that they "settle and the pores open," says Shindel.
Just as you would imagine, the longer the tea has been left to seep, the more favorable the outcome has been. "A close to 100% removal efficiency of heavy metals can be obtained in all cases where longer drinking times or higher surface areas are engaged," Shindel mentioned. "There are some people who brew their tea for a few seconds, and hence they are not going to get a good remediation. But if you brew tea longer, say for overnight or have it brewed like iced tea, the recovery of the metal will be most or even all the metal in water," he said.
At the end of all the works, the scientists concluded that tea brewing can take out about 15% of lead from drinking water. This information is the outcome only of a "normal" cup of tea, or a single cup of water with a tea bag, which is brewing for three to five minutes. Changing the variables removes different levels of lead.