Green Tea

A natural history

Green tea comes from the leaves of an evergreen shrub first cultivated in the mountains of southwestern China, and its origin is wrapped in one of the loveliest legends in all of plant lore. As the story goes, the mythical emperor and herbalist Shennong was boiling water beneath a wild tea tree around 2737 BCE when a few leaves drifted into his pot; he drank the fragrant brew, found it reviving, and tea was born. By the eighth century the scholar Lu Yu had written the world's first book devoted entirely to tea.

From China the leaf traveled across East Asia, carried to Japan by a Zen monk who also brought the whisked, powdered style that became matcha and, in time, the tea ceremony. Alongside the cup, tea leaf was long valued in folk care for tired eyes and skin, the same soothing, antioxidant reputation it brings to skincare today.

What it does for your skin

Green tea's power comes from its catechins, above all one called EGCG. In a small controlled study, a green tea polyphenol cream lowered skin signals tied to persistent redness and visible vessels, pointing to support for calmer, more even-looking skin.^[1] A separate study of a green tea leaf extract found it raised skin hydration and smoothed the skin's surface texture over a few weeks.^[2] These are early findings, so we lean on green tea as a soothing, antioxidant-rich botanical.

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