Health
Tea Leaves Can Steep Away Lead, Study Finds
Tea leaves pull heavy metals from water, significantly lowering the amount of lead and other dangerous compounds that people may be unknowingly drinking, a new study found.
Recent research has highlighted potential applications for used tea leaves, from biofuels to gluten-free cookies. But the new study shows a public health benefit from something that countless people are already doing. About five billion cups of tea are consumed each day around the world, according to one estimate.
“You can see the implications,” said Vinayak Dravid, a materials scientist at Northwestern and an author of the study, which was published this week. “How often do we touch billions of people?”
In many countries, the water used to steep tea is contaminated with lead from aging pipes. In the United States, nine million homes get their water through pipes that contain lead, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Lead is especially dangerous to children. Exposure can lead to developmental delays and behavioral issues.
Dr. Dravid and his team tested how different types of tea — black, white, oolong, green, rooibos, herbal, loose leaf and plain old Lipton — behaved in water with varying amounts of lead.
The tea was then allowed to steep for variable periods of time. Afterward, the scientists measured how much lead remained in the water.
Compounds called catechins in tea leaves act like “little Velcro” hooks to which lead molecules latch, said Michelle Francl, a chemist at Bryn Mawr College and the author of a book on the chemistry of tea. Dr. Francl also said that the “ridges and valleys” of the tea leaves provided the necessary surface area for that interaction.
While those properties have been known for some time, Dr. Dravid and his colleagues were the first to look at the lead-detoxifying powers of a single cup of tea. They found that black tea leaves became wrinkled after roasting and were thus best equipped to absorb heavy metals.
“Green tea and black tea had fairly equivalent amounts of metal absorbed,” said another author, Benjamin Shindel, who was a doctoral candidate at Northwestern while working on the study.
White tea, on the other hand, undergoes a much more gentle preparation. Its leaves remain smooth, offering less surface area from which to draw heavy metals from water. Herbal tea enthusiasts may be disappointed to learn that chamomile tea does a poor job of heavy-metal filtering, too, probably because it is made with chamomile flowers, not tea leaves.
Still, these distinctions between different types of tea were not the most relevant factor. “It’s much more important how long you’re brewing the tea for,” Dr. Shindel said.
The researchers found that steeping a cup of black tea for five minutes could remove 15 percent of lead from the water, which is helpful, but there is “no safe level” of lead exposure, according to the E.P.A.
“With lead and other contaminants, any decrease is meaningful to some extent, especially if you have a lack of resources or infrastructure that would already remediate some of these problem materials,” said Caroline Harms, who was an undergraduate student of Dr. Dravid at Northwestern while working on the study.
The longer the steeping time, however, the more bitter the resulting tea. Last year, Dr. Francl caused a minor international scandal by suggesting that adding salt to tea could mitigate its bitterness. But even that controversial chemistry hack has its limits. “It’s not really drinkable after 10 minutes of steeping tea, and no amount of salt is going to help that,” she said.
Some samples in the study had to be steeped for 24 hours, which would render the tea undrinkable.
The study’s authors said they were less motivated to make public health prescriptions for policymakers than to study a hidden benefit of a global habit.
The researchers estimated that a country where people drank large amounts of tea would have about 3 percent less lead ingestion from the water supply than a (hypothetical) identical country that did not drink any tea.
“How wonderful,” said Henrietta Lovell, the founder of the Rare Tea Company. Ms. Lovell, who supplies teas to exclusive restaurants, pointed out that tea had been used in China for medicinal purposes for thousands of years. “The more I learn about tea, the more fabulous and fascinating it becomes,” Ms. Lovell said.
Dr. Francl believes that the new findings could eventually pave the way to a scalable method of making sure people aren’t ingesting heavy metals. “Given that clean water is such a global issue,” she said, “if there was a way to take this proof of concept and tweak it to produce potable water at the end, that would be pretty good.”
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Though we’ve made progress, “there’s still a long way to go” when it comes to the adoption process, says a family expert — including protecting the safety of young people who are in foster care as they await permanent, loving families.
The Selfless Love Foundation’s National Think Tank is a collective force of change-makers aiming to improve the foster care adoption process in this country. The annual conference, which took place in October, brings together young people who have experienced foster care, as well as child welfare leaders and policymakers from over 30 states.
The National Think Tank is a strategic plan to influence federal policy and state-level action to transform the foster care adoption process to best serve children.
FACILITATING THE INTEGRATION OF ADOPTED CHILDREN INTO YOUR FAMILY
On the heels of the October 2025 Think Tank, lead researchers from Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago will create a road map and actionable next steps for each state.
For National Adoption Month in November, I spoke with Ashley Brown, founder and CEO of Selfless Love. She and her husband started their nonprofit 10 years ago, in 2015 — and she has said her own adoption as an infant “changed the trajectory” of her life. She’s been on “America’s Newsroom” several times. Read on for her thoughtful answers to some important questions!
Q: How is the U.S. taking care of foster care children and encouraging adoption?
Ashley Brown: As a nation, we’ve made progress, but there’s still a long way to go. Many people would be surprised to learn that in most states, photos of children available for adoption are posted publicly online.
While that approach to adoption recruitment may have made sense before the internet’s evolution — it can also put young people at risk.
In Florida, Selfless Love Foundation worked alongside youth to help pass a law that protects children’s images from public view. It also gives children aged 12 and up a say in the photos and information shared on adoption sites.
An entire day of the National Think Tank was dedicated to this specific issue. We also looked at adoption recruitment and post-adoption support for families, as the goal is not just child placement — but permanency.
“There is no federal law and very limited state laws that even acknowledge young people’s right to choose how they’re represented in adoption recruitment,” said Ashley Brown, founder of Selfless Love Foundation. (iStock)
Q: What are the biggest obstacles to making more progress?
Brown: One of the biggest obstacles to progress is the lack of a federal policy to protect children’s privacy and to give them a voice in how they’re represented.
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Each state is left to make its own decisions, and young people lack concrete rights and protections across the board. They are the experts — and they must be included in the decisions that affect them most.
Q: What research or lessons from the National Think Tank could foster significant progress?
Brown: What really stood out was how little protection there is for children in the adoption process. There is no federal law and very limited state laws that even acknowledge young people’s right to choose how they’re represented in adoption recruitment.
“Rights, recruitment and post-adoption support are connected. We can’t fix one without strengthening the others.”
That gap highlights how far we have to go and where we should start.
It also reminds us that rights, recruitment and post-adoption support are connected. We can’t fix one without strengthening the others.
“The most immediate and achievable step is to support legislation that gives youth the right to choose how they’re represented in adoption recruitment,” said Ashley Brown (not pictured). (iStock)
Q: What can state legislatures do in the next 12 months to affect change?
Brown: The most immediate and achievable step is to support legislation that gives youth the right to choose how they’re represented in adoption recruitment, protecting their privacy, dignity and safety.
Researchers from Chapin Hall will prepare a report on the key findings from the National Think Tank, which will help state and federal leaders better understand the importance of youth rights in adoption.
Leaders from more than 30 states recently gathered at Selfless Love Foundation’s National Think Tank to tackle some of the biggest challenges that exist in the foster care and adoption process. (iStock)
Q: How can Americans best help children who are in foster care or aging out of the system?
Brown: One theme we heard over and over at the National Think Tank was the power of community. Kids in foster care and those who have aged out of the system need to know they have support and that people care.
Thanks to the generosity of our supporters, Selfless Love Foundation is able to offer this National Think Tank at no cost, including scholarships to cover youth’s travel and accommodations.
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The best way people can help is by allowing more young people to attend events like this, where their voices are heard, their experiences are valued — and they are part of transforming the system.
With no national standard in place, we leave a vulnerable group of children without clear protections.
We already recognize a child’s right to choose adoption.
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Extending that principle to how they are portrayed is a matter of policy alignment and fairness. To help, and to learn more, anyone can visit selflesslovefoundation.org.
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