GABA Tea
GABA Tea (other names - Gabaron, Jia Wu Long cha, Jing Bai Long cha, 佳叶龙茶) is tea undergone special oxygen-free fermentation technology, and as a result it has accumulated GABA in tea leaves.
This technology has been created in Japan. Prof. Tsushida et al. of the former MAFF National Research Institute of Tea (currently the National Institute of Vegetables and Tea Science) began developing GABA-rich tea in 1984 and successfully produced a new type tea in which almost all glutamic acid has been converted to GABA without changing the content of catechin or caffeine They discovered a new method of fermentation of tea accidentally found that a large amount of GABA accumulated in green tea through six to ten hours in anaerobic (oxygen-free) condition of fermentation. Oxygen in the atmosphere fermentation chamber was replaced with nitrogen. They examined further the GABA content of green, oolong and black tea made under anaerobic condition and found that GABA accumulated in all teas. Japanese scientists have shown great interest and attention to this new technology and in the late '80s in Japan, this GABA-teas was actively distributed as a commercial product for people with hypertension. It was investigated that the chemically synthesized GABA reduces blood pressure in experimental animals(Omori et al., 1987; Stanton, 1963) and humans (Elliott & Hobbiger, 1959), Further researches demonstrated that GABA-teas was also able to reduce the blood pressure in experimental animals and humans (Abe et al., 1995; Hakamata, 1990; Lin et al., 2000).
References
- Tsushida T et al., Production of a New Type Tea Containing a High Level of gamma-Aminobutyric Acid, Nippon Nogeikagaku Kaishi. 1987, 61: 817-822.89
- Omori M et al., Effect of Anaerobically Treated Tea (Gabaron Tea) on Blood Pressure of Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats, Nippon Nogeikagaku Kaishi. 1987, 61: 1449-1451.
- Abe Y, et al. Effect of green tea rich in gamma-aminobutyric acid on blood pressure of Dahl saltsensitive rats. Am J Hypertens. 1995, 8: 74-79
- Sheng-Dun Lin et al. Bioactive components and antioxidant properties of g-aminobutyric acid (GABA) tea leaves. LWT - Food Science and Technology Volume 46, Issue 1, April 2012, Pages 64–70
- Hsueh Fang Wang et al. Comparison of bioactive components in GABA tea and green tea produced in Taiwan. Department of Food Science, National Chung Hsing University, 250 KuoKuang Road, Taichung, Taiwan 402, ROC. Food Chemistry (Impact Factor: 3.39). 06/2006; 96(4):648-653. DOI: 10.1016/j.foodchem.2005.02.046