Tea Leaves-based Smoking Alternatives To Tobacco Cigarettes
When concerning tea, it is most commonly recognized as a beverage in many cultures, and people drink it for a good reason.
Author:Paolo ReynaDec 18, 202291.6K Shares1.5M Views
When concerning tea, it is most commonly recognized as a beverage in many cultures, and people drink it for a good reason.
Teas are proven to have various health benefits, which can help with cancer, heart disease, and diabetes, as well as weight loss and so on.
Being a drink material, tea leaves have gained worldwide popularity for centuries, with China even boasting its tea drink culture for thousands of years.
However, tea is not only known as something we drink, it is also associated with smoking. Especially in recent years, tea leaves based smoking has become quite a phenomenon.
What is a tea cigarette?
Just as its name implies, a tea cigarette uses tea plants (camellia Sinensis), predominantly tea leaves and buds, rather than tobacco plants as their main raw materials.
A tea cigarette is also referred to as tea smoking or teabaccoand is considered as a tobacco substitute.
Even though tea smoking has not become familiar to the public until recent years, it has been a practice in China for centuries.
It is believed that tea smoking originated from China, where people first burnt pine needle tea leaves to generate smoke that they inhaled through bamboo tubes. Gradually, smoking tea becomes a recreational activity.
Besides, tea cigarettes are also said to have been popular in Vietnam for a few decades.
Nowadays, tea cigarettes are usually marketed as a healthier alternative to tobacco cigarettes due to their beneficial properties or as nicotine cessation products, as they don't contain nicotine, a chemical composition that will get users highly addicted.
How does one consume a tea cigarette?
Tea cigarettes can be consumed in a variety of ways. For example, you can simply go DIY routes by rolling up the loose-leaf tea into a cigarette with rolling papers.
Also loose-leaf tea can also be replaced by tea bags, which are low tea grades, such as dust and fannings with the same procedure.
Furthermore, you can mix them with herbs like lavender and raspberry or flavorings to create your own tea-based smoking blends according to your preference.
The loose-leaf tea or bagged tea can also be smoked by a pipe or water pipe.
Of course, prefabricated tea cigarettes can be purchased on the on-line and offline market if you want to save your time.
Why do you choose tea cigarettes?
If you are going to try tea smoking, ask yourself one question before going ahead, that is why to choose tea cigarettes?
Probably you do it for healthy benefits, or to help with quitting the nicotine, or you simply want to explore something new.
Whatever the reasons may be, it will be a smart step to you if you begin to seek alternatives to tobacco cigarettes, as they are proven to pose a great health threat to you and to the people surrounding you.
Tobacco smoking is reported to be one of the major risk factors for premature deaths worldwide.
Traditional tobacco cigarettes are burnt to an extremely high temperature of around 900°C to produce tobacco smoke, along with tar, ash and carbon monoxide, etc. These toxicants are potentially harmful to the human body.
It is said that there are more than 7,000 thousand chemicals released during the combustion of tobacco cigarettes, among which 250 are known hazards and at least 70 are carcinogenic.
In all, tobacco smoking can lead to various deadly diseases such as cancer, heart disease, strokes and more.
Due to the health threat of tobacco smoking, more and more people are looking for healthier alternatives. Tea cigarettesmoking becomes one of their options, which they believe is less harmful than conventional tobacco cigarettes.
But there remains one question, is tea cigarettes really a healthier and safer alternative to tobacco cigarettes?
Are tea cigarettes a healthier alternative to tobacco cigarettes?
As mentioned above, tea, when used as a drink, boasts various benefits.
For example, green tea contains such beneficial ingredients as L-theanine, catechins, and more, which can be well absorbed when it is consumed as a drink, but there is no evidence showing that these compounds can be properly absorbed through smoking.
Also, although tea cigarette makers claim that tea cigarettes produce less harmful chemicals when they are burnt than tobacco cigarettes, there has not been sufficient evidence to prove that.
What's more, it is a fact that regardless of any source of raw materials, be it tea leaves or tobacco. There is no complete safety when it comes to burning.
An obvious example is the production of carbon monoxide during combustion, a toxic substance that can lead to strain on the heart and to the potential for heart failure and stroke.
In regards to other potentially toxic substances that might occur in burning tea cigarettes, further studies are needed to be conducted, as there is no conclusive evidence on the side effects of smoking tea.
In other words, burning is usually linked to pollution and human bodies always don't welcome polluted air.
So, unfortunately, it is still uncertain whether tea cigarettes are safer or healthier than conventional tobacco cigarettes or not, since both of them are associated with the burning of raw materials. If you are going to try them, you'd better consult a doctor.
Anyway, if you are really interested in tea smoking and something refreshing or soothing, you still have another suitable option, which is heat-not-burn alternatives.
Why not try tea-based heat-not-burn products?
Heat-not-burn alternatives are alternatives to heated-not-burn tobacco, which refer to a unique delivery method that kicks off the combustion.
When consuming heat-not-burn products, you use an electronic device to heat the raw materials to a temperature at about 350°C, to generate an inhalable aerosol that users breathe.
The raw materials may consist of tobacco leaves, natural herbs, tea leaves, or so, which can be infused with flavorings to meet everyone's taste.
As heat-not-burn products are heated without burning, they don't generate smoke, tar, ash and other toxicants.
Consuming tea-based heat-not-burn products as alternatives to conventional cigarettes or heated-not-burn tobacco has become a growing trend in various areas, especially in European regions.
Compared with tobacco products, tea-based heated alternatives offer richer flavors, which cater to those who favor something aromatic and exotic.
Besides, as tea contains caffeine, tea-based heated alternatives may help with energy-boosting.
As a result of the popularity of tea-based heated alternatives, there are a variety of new products coming onto the market.
For example, NEAFS, one of the leading brands in the tea-based heat not burn alternative industry, offers a wide range of options for users to choose from.
Rather than using tobacco, Neafs work by heating tea leaves and flavorings, vegetable glycerine and propylene glycol to an aerosol, avoiding the production of hazards which are created when a conventional cigarette is lit up.
The flavors are available in menthol, burberry, strawberry coffee, and mojito to satisfy the user's preference.
Surprisingly, Neafs also offer choices for those habitual smokers who enjoy the throat hit of nicotine with their non-tobacco nicotine products.
Neaf's non-tobacco nicotine products allow smokers to have a similar sensation as smoking whilst keeping users away from the toxicants present in tobacco leaves and tobacco smoke.
In conclusion
When it comes to tobacco substitutes, there are so many to explore. Tea cigarettes can be a choice if you want to try out new things.
But keep in mind that there has not been convincing evidence to support the safety of tea cigarettes, especially when it comes to the burning of raw materials.
Opting for tea-based heat-not-burn alternatives can be a better choice for you to begin your journey for something new as they are smoke-free, exposing you to a reduced risk that is brought by traditional tobacco cigarettes.
Paolo Reyna
Author
Paolo Reyna is a writer and storyteller with a wide range of interests. He graduated from New York University with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Media Studies.
Paolo enjoys writing about celebrity culture, gaming, visual arts, and events. He has a keen eye for trends in popular culture and an enthusiasm for exploring new ideas. Paolo's writing aims to inform and entertain while providing fresh perspectives on the topics that interest him most.
In his free time, he loves to travel, watch films, read books, and socialize with friends.
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