Tea May Be the Perfect Energy Drink

Forget Red Bull. Forget Gatorade. Forget any beverage with an animal in its name. Remember the beverage whose name has one syllable and whose track record is 5,000 years and counting: tea. Men’s Journal points out that the U.S. tea market has sales grown from an $1.84 billion in 1990 to more than $6 billion today, and the magazine thinks it knows why: Tea shares coffee’s
pick-me-up appeal, but has an amino acid, L-theanine, that causes its
naturally occurring caffeine to have a milder, steadier effect that
peaks after 60 minutes or so and falls to half strength over the next
four to six hours. The magazine also reports that recent animal
studies suggest that green tea’s combination of caffeine and a
polyphenol called EGCG has the potential to improve endurance.