Benifuki Green Tea - A Natural Way To Control Allergy Symptoms

Benefuki Green Tea contains Methylated Catechins.

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Developing Holistic Solutions
In the U.S., disease is addressed, for the most part, by pharmaceutical companies hoping to profit on the sale of drugs. Controlling allergy symptoms is a big business. Antihistamines, nasal sprays, eye drops, oral and nasal corticosteroids are just some of the medications sold to the 50+ million people who have some sort of allergy.  


I find it incredibly interesting and heart warming that in Japan they complement their pharmaceutical industry with government sponsored holistic research. They have an organization called the National Institute of Vegetable and Tea Science (NIVTS). This organization was given the task to determine if tea could help alleviate allergy symptoms. After conducting research from 1996 to 2000, they found something that worked!


The NIVTS invented a species of tea called Benifuki. Although it was originally created as a black tea, they discovered that if Benifuki was processed into a green tea, it developed compounds called "methylated catechins" that suppressed histamines. Histamines, as you know, are what causes allergy symptoms such as itchy eyes, sneezing, runny noses, etc. 


You can find Benifuki as a powdered green tea. It comes in individual servings and can be stirred into a cup of hot or cold water. 

These individual packets are convenient to take with you anywhere

They Really Help!
The ultimate test is my husband. He's a wine grape farmer and spends most of his days outside. He then spends the rest of the evening sneezing and blowing his nose as he's got pretty bad allergies. So I was thrilled when he agreed to throw out his zyrtec (which wasn't working anymore) and try Benifuki. Since he drinks about 8 cups of green tea a day anyway, substituting a few cups of Benifuki was a no brainer. 
After taking just 3 cups of Benifuki a day, his allergies symptoms improved. He was so pleased, he just ordered a bunch more! 


Update on Recommended Amount
We wrote to Den Shirakata, of Den's tea, to ask for the optimal amount of benifuki to control histamines. He claims that it takes 40 mg of methyl catechin to effectively suppress histamine. This would require 5 individual packets per day.


Where to Buy
My favorite on-line store for all my green tea is Den's Tea. You can buy their Powdered Benifuki  for $9.50 per 20 individually wrapped 0.4 gram servings.


How to Use
They recommend stirring one packet into 5 ounces of hot or cold water. I throw mine into my smoothie or just make a cup of hot tea with it. It has a lovely, mild flavor. If you suffer from allergies and love green tea, you should give it a try!