Tea and Health
    "No Emperor Wei Di's drug pills are needed if one drinks seven cups of Lu Tong's tea".
    Tea was used as a drug when it first entered human life. It is generally considered that tea had been used as a drug before the Qin and Han Dynasty.
    In the Tea Classic, Lu Yu mentioned again the "medicinal property" of tea when he analyzed the nature of tea. He pointed out that tea had several functions: refreshing, keeping one's head cool, relaxing, detoxifying and curing boils. Chen Cangqi of the Tang Dynasty made it more clean in "Ben Cao Shi Yi" when he wrote that tea was a miraculous drug that can cure any disease.
    In the Ming Dynasty, Qian Chunshou wrote in his work "Tea Manual" that drinking real tea could quench thirst, help digestion, get rid of illness, decrease sleep, improve eyesight, benefit thinking, suppress dyspepsia and dispel grease. Li Shizhen confirmed the pharmaceutical functions of tea from the Chinese medicinal theory point of view and he developed various decocting and administration methods.

    According to various historical references, more than 20 pharmaceutical functions of tea were summed up by scholars of later ages. These include: sleeping less, calming nerves, benefiting eyesight, stimulating the head up, helping to produce saliva and slaking thirst, dispelling heat, detoxifying, helping digestion, sobering up, dispelling grease, farting, stimulating evacuation of faeces, curing dysentery, casing expectoration, relieving rheumatic pains and colds, strengthening teeth, curing children's boils, curing fistula, increasing physical power and prolonging life.
    In the twentieth century, with the development of biochemistry and the involvement of medical science, the pharmaceutical functions of tea have been further understood. It was confirmed that tea contained caffeine, various vitamins and amino acids. Tea has an obvious curative effect on many common diseases, such as preventing dental caries, disinfecting, alleviating poisonous effect of smoking on human body, detoxifying poisonous effects of heavy metals, anti-radiation, lowering blood pressure and blood sugar, anti-arteriosclerosis,  anti-mutation and anti-aging. Tea is now wins the praise of an atomic era beverage.