After the year 2000, when Pu'er Tea became widely recognized in China, enthusiasts of Pu'er tea could list its Health benefits with ease. However, it might be surprising to learn that the first scientific experiment on the effects of Pu'er tea actually originated from the Saint Antoine Hospital in Paris and the Medical School at the University of Lyon in France. Tuo tea from Yunnan Province was once sold as an important cholesterol-lowering health drink in pharmacies across France.
It was this first medical experimental report that initiated systematic scientific research into Pu'er tea. Meanwhile, domestic research into Pu'er tea in China has also made remarkable progress. There is no doubt that Pu'er tea from Yunnan, coming from the rainforest, is a healthy gift to the world.
Whenever people discuss the health benefits of Pu'er tea, they cannot help but recall the story of “Xiaofa Tuo” (Pu'er ripe tea for fat reduction). This was a clinical experiment conducted by Dr. Émile Carobi, the head of clinical teaching at the Saint Antoine Hospital in Paris, using Tuo tea from Yunnan in 1979. The experiment was commissioned by Mr. Gamper, the European agent for Tuo tea (Pu'er ripe type) from Yunnan (Xiaguan). After the results were released, a high-profile press conference was held in France, which received frequent media coverage (referred to in the industry as the “Émile Experimental Report”).
This was the first international clinical health experiment on Chinese Pu'er tea. The results stunned the international food industry at the time. They brought praise to Yunnan Tuo tea (Pu'er ripe tea) for the first time in Europe and laid the foundation for decades of research into the effects of Pu'er tea. The Émile Experimental Report concluded, “Overall, according to our findings, if the impact of drinking Yunnan Tuo tea on weight is set aside due to conflicting results, its effect on lipid metabolism is remarkable. Its impact on triglyceride levels is undeniable, and statistically, the results are very exciting; the effects on total lipids and cholesterol levels are somewhat weaker. We wish to emphasize that this study was conducted without changing dietary habits or adding therapeutic supplements. Given this, we strongly recommend including Yunnan Tuo tea in the diet of individuals with high lipid levels as an adjunct to other necessary therapies. It is necessary and beneficial to complete this initial study with a larger sample size, but we hope to draw the attention of our peers to the possibility of this simple and harmless treatment.”
Since the founding of Pu'er magazine, we have searched for the “Émile Experimental Report” multiple times. Due to various reasons, this report had been hidden for over thirty years until the summer of 2015, when it was finally found and translated into Chinese for exclusive full publication. The first public disclosure of the Émile Experimental Report in Chinese media caused quite a stir within the tea industry. Many readers and tea enthusiasts repeatedly asked me one question: Since the subject of the research was Tuo tea from Yunnan (Xiaguan), why didn't relevant institutions in the country of origin conduct research and pay attention to Pu'er tea, instead leaving it to the French to initiate the studies? In fact, the same experiment was also conducted concurrently at the First Affiliated Hospital of Kunming Medical College (Yunnan University Hospital), and the report from this hospital had already been published in domestic media, but it did not cause much of a reaction at the time, which was related to the social environment at the time.
The function of Pu'er tea lies in its ability to reduce grease, aid digestion, and lower the “three highs” (high Blood pressure, high blood Sugar, and high cholesterol). Compared to the challenges of food scarcity and malnutrition faced by Chinese people at the time, Pu'er tea was clearly not suitable for the large-scale consumption needs of that era. The Émile Experimental Report emerged during the 1970s and 1980s, a period when affluent Europeans' diets were largely composed of high-calorie, high-fat, and high-protein foods, which was a time of high prevalence of the “three highs.” The astute Mr. Gamper knew that Europeans were empiricists and that the miraculous effects of Pu'er tea on the human body needed to be proven through accurate scientific analysis. He thus commissioned two prestigious French medical institutions, the Saint Antoine Hospital in Paris and the Medical School at the University of Lyon, to conduct clinical research on Yunnan Tuo tea (Pu'er ripe tea). Dr. Émile Carobi, the head of clinical teaching, led the experiment. The experiment selected individuals between the ages of 18 and 60 with high cholesterol levels for a controlled study, where one group drank Yunnan Tuo tea and the other took the cholesterol-lowering drug clofibrate. After one month, the lipid levels of both groups were tested, and the results showed that Yunnan Tuo tea had better cholesterol-lowering effects than clofibrate, which astonished many medical and nutritional experts in France.
In the mid-to-late 1980s, the University of Lyon conducted a comprehensive physicochemical analysis of Yunnan Tuo tea from a theoretical perspective, publishing a monograph that detailed the chemical components of Yunnan Tuo tea. It was believed that Yunnan Tuo tea had varying degrees of inhibitory effects on cholesterol, triglycerides, and Uric acid in the human body. This research was included in the French Medical Dictionary.
The sales of Yunnan Tuo tea increased significantly. Starting from 2 tons in 1977, it grew to 8 tons, 20 tons, 80 tons… every year, increasing several times over. By 1991, sales had surpassed 200 tons. Mr. Gamper became the exclusive general agent for Yunnan Tuo tea in Europe in 1979 and co-founded the largest food distribution company in Europe, “DISTRIBORG,” with a major Belgian conglomerate, which handled the wholesale distribution of Yunnan Tuo tea throughout Europe.
From the 1970s to the late 1980s, in France, Yunnan Tuo tea was not sold in tea shops but in pharmacies or health supplement counters. Patients with high cholesterol would often receive prescriptions from their doctors saying, “Two capsules of Yunnan Tuo tea.” These could be purchased at the pharmacy. However, in China before the year 2000, apart from Tibet, Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Taiwan, few people knew about or consumed Pu'er tea. Even people in Yunnan, the birthplace of Pu'er tea, were drinking “Dian Green,” and most did not know what Pu'er tea was. At that time, Pu'er tea was primarily an export product with little local consumption. As for the gradual revival of Pu'er tea after the millennium, which has now been ongoing for nearly twenty years, I will not go into further detail here.
This article is excerpted from
Discovering the First Medical Experimental Report on Pu'er Tea
Author | Xiao Yao Nan
Originally published in Pu'er Magazine
October 2016 Issue
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