Surpassed only by water, tea is the second most consumed beverage worldwide. When boiled tap water is used to brew tea, residual chlorine in the water can react with tea compounds to form disinfection byproducts (DBPs)
Now, U.S. National Science Foundation-funded researchers reporting in Environmental Science & Technology measured 60 DBPs in three types of tea, unexpectedly finding lower levels in brewed tea than in tap water. However, they also detected many unknown DBPs with uncertain health effects."Disinfection byproducts are included in the broad class of contaminants of emerging concern that are increasingly being found in drinking water," says Mamadou Diallo, a program director in NSF's
