ABSTRACT
Tea is one of the most popular drinks due to its pleasant taste and perceived health effects. Although health bene˜ts have been attributed to tea consumption since the beginning of its history, scienti˜c investigation of this beverage and its constituents has been under way for about 30 years (McKay and Blumberg 2002; Gardner, Ruxton, and Leeds 2007). Consumption of tea, in particular green tea (GT), has been correlated with low incidence of chronic pathologies in which oxidative stress has been reported to be involved, such as cancer (Chung et al. 2003; Butt and Sultan 2009) and cardiovascular diseases (CVDs; Stangl et al. 2007; Babu and Liu 2008).
