Researchers at Northwestern University have discovered that brewing tea naturally removes heavy metals like lead and cadmium from water. The tea leaves act as an adsorbent, trapping the metal ions on their surface.
While not advocating for tea as a water filter, the study's authors highlights its potential to passively reduce heavy metal exposure due to its widespread consumption.
“I’m not sure that there’s anything uniquely remarkable about tea leaves as a material,” says Benjamin Shindel, the study’s first author. “They have a high active surface area, which is a useful property for an adsorbent material and what makes tea leaves good
