Black, green, and white teas are all made from the same evergreen plant.

Herbal tea, on the other hand, involves pouring water over any plant in the world other than the tea plant.

In my book How Not to Age, I covered hibiscus and chamomile tea in my chapters on boosting

AMPK and blocking inflammation. Are there any other notable herbal teas that may have anti-aging

properties? Roybos, also known as red tea, is a caffeine-free herbal tea grown in the mountainous

region of South Africa. It's been shown to increase

the lifespan of sea elegans by as much as 23 percent under conditions of oxidative stress,

presumed to be due to its antioxidant properties. In a head-to-head comparison of 15 herbal teas,

Roybos came in at number two, after dandelion, for in vitro antioxidant power.

Green rhibose, analogous to green tea, worked better in the C. Elegance study than red

roibos, which is the commercially more common oxidized form, akin to black tea.

Green rhibose tea has about twice the antioxidant capacity compared to red, though both similarly

increase the blood antioxidant capacity after consumption. Within six weeks, ribose intake can

decrease markers of oxidative damage and even drop LDL cholesterol by nearly 27 points compared

to control, but the dose used, six cups a day, is more than most people drink.

No smaller quantity has apparently yet been put to the test.

If you want to try it at home, though the optimal cup is said to require 10 minutes of steeping,

it appears extraction plateaus at five minutes, so more time doesn't seem necessary.

The traditional method of brewing is to simmer the roibos,

which does appear to improve its anti-oxin capacities compared to hot or cold steeping.

The practice fell into disfavor with the advent of tea bags for convenience in the 1960s.

The same bag transition happened to black tea, jumping from 5% in 1960 in the UK to more than

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