Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff,
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogelbaum. Here, chances are you've heard about some of
Speaker 1: the potential health benefits of green tea and its extracts,
Speaker 1: like antioxidants. Green tea comes from the leaves of the
Speaker 1: Camellia synesis plants that have not undergone the same fermentation
Speaker 1: and oxidation process used to make black tea. Green tea
Speaker 1: has a higher concentration of antioxidants known as polyphenols than
Speaker 1: other types of tea. But the pale brew hasn't always
Speaker 1: been so hailed. Back in the Victorian era, it was
Speaker 1: said to cause hallucinations. Rumors warned that sippers might see ghosts.
Speaker 1: In the eighteen nineties, the land Set Medical Journal published
Speaker 1: a study noting the negative effects of green tea, including
Speaker 1: stomach problems and fluttering of the heart, citing a woman
Speaker 1: profiled in Scottish Medical Journal who became hysterical after drinking
Speaker 1: green tea on an empty stomach instant only physicians calmed
Speaker 1: down by administering opium to further cement green tea's reputation.
Speaker 1: Author Sheridan LeFanu, an Irish mystery writer whose eighteen seventy
Speaker 1: two collection of Tales featured the aptly named Green Tea,
Speaker 1: latched on to this idea and used it in the
Speaker 1: short story that captured the public's imagination. Lefano's Green Tea
Speaker 1: takes place in the early eighteen hundreds and recounts the
Speaker 1: plight of one mister Jennings, a clergyman who sees the
Speaker 1: evil spirit of a monkey and turns to his doctor
Speaker 1: for help. His doctor rejects the idea that something supernatural
Speaker 1: is happening, and after discovering that Jennings drinks green tea
Speaker 1: before bed, the doctor claims the green tea is to blame.
Speaker 1: The doctor contends that the green tea has built up
Speaker 1: in Jennings body and is effecting his central nervous system,
Speaker 1: causing him to hallucinate. While the story's scientific explanation that
Speaker 1: green tea builds up in the body is false, it
Speaker 1: didn't seem completely implausible. After all, Drinking too much of
Speaker 1: some substances, like beer or other alcohol, can cause both
Speaker 1: temporary and permanent issues with reality perception, and there's another
Speaker 1: crucial kernel of truth. In the seventies, green tea was
Speaker 1: an imported and expensive delicacy, so to increase its quantity
Speaker 1: and its shelf life. Purveyors added a variety of other
Speaker 1: things to the tea leaves, ranging from iron filings to
Speaker 1: plants like hazelwood or hawthorne. They also supplemented green tea's
Speaker 1: color by adding dye in the form of natural additives
Speaker 1: like sheep dung and chemical colorance like Prussian blue. In fact,
Speaker 1: green tea's identity and flavor had become so muddled and
Speaker 1: diluted that when tea merchants attempted to sell pure green
Speaker 1: tea free from fillers, people didn't believe it was actually
Speaker 1: green tea and refused to buy it. Strange additives aside,
Speaker 1: regular amounts of green tea do not cause hallucinations unless
Speaker 1: you drink at an ordinate amount of it or anything
Speaker 1: else that contains caffeine one two nine studies from Latrobe
Speaker 1: University tested people drinking various doses of caffeine and measured
Speaker 1: how much it would take to actually hallucinate. Participants who
Speaker 1: drank nine cups of green tea or three cups of
Speaker 1: coffee were three times more likely to hear voices and
Speaker 1: see objects that were not there. So, while it's technically
Speaker 1: possible to hallucinate by ingesting massive amounts of caffeine via
Speaker 1: green tea. It would require a great deal of the
Speaker 1: beverage and it wouldn't build up in one system to
Speaker 1: have a cumulative effect either, So evil monkeys aside, Green
Speaker 1: tea is good for you in moderation. Today's episode was
Speaker 1: written by Laurie L. Dove and produced by Tyler Clang.
Speaker 1: To learn more about the colorful history of green tea,
Speaker 1: check out the episode of our compatriot podcast Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind called the Myth of green Tea Hallucinations,
Speaker 1: And of course, for more on this and lots of
Speaker 1: other probably not hallucinatory topics, visit our home planet, how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com.