Tea: Why your daily cuppa could make your brain sharper

There are so many reasons we enjoy a cup of tea.

It’s our morning caffeine hit, and a warm, comforting “hug in a mug” to enjoy later in the day. A majority of us (six in ten) say we drink tea on a daily basis, according to a YouGov survey.

Now, there’s yet another reason to make that extra cuppa: it will improve your brain health.

Scientists have found daily tea drinkers have better organised brain regions compared to those who do not drink tea.

The research was carried out jointly by teams at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and, in the UK, the University of Essex and the University of Cambridge.

READ MORE: How to make the perfect cup of tea

Published in the scientific journal, Aging, the findings highlights the brain benefits for individuals who drank either oolong tea, green tea or black tea.

Tea-drinkers have brain regions which are more inter-connected in an efficient way, so they can process information more quickly.

“Take the analogy of road traffic as an example -- consider brain regions as destinations, while the connections between brain regions are roads,” explained team leader Assistant Professor Feng Lei, who is from the Department of Psychological Medicine at the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine.

He added: “When a road system is better organised, the movement of vehicles and passengers is more efficient and uses less resources. Similarly, when the connections between brain regions are more structured, information processing can be performed more efficiently.”

READ MORE: Your cup of tea doesn't need a spoonful of sugar

The findings add to a body of related research highlighting the benefits of tea drinking to protect against brain ageing.

Among the other health benefits of tea, a regular cuppa is said to help protect your brain from age-related cognitive decline.