Var wrote:Since I like Puerh a lot this just means I'm going to have to find a raw form that tastes similar to cooked.
I think the point everyone is trying to make is that you shouldn't need to worry about shu vs. sheng or raw vs. cooked pu-erh that you drink. Both are healthy drinks and the fact that one might contain X % more antioxidants
on average doesn't in the least make the other unhealthy.
Just as everyone's mentioned, drinking tea can help support your best health but it can only play a small role in what needs to be a more larger, broader effort to live a healthy lifestyle. And more and more research is showing that an individual's attitude plays just as large a role in their health outcomes as what they eat and drink or how much they exercise. I feel like analyzing every piece of possible information about what tea you drink and drying to get the one with the highest possible antioxidant content is probably adding unnecessary, unhealthy stress to your tea-drinking experience.
For me, tea is a small but very enjoyable part of my healthy lifestyle. I am pescetarian (vegetarian but also eat fish), I rarely eat dairy, my diet is 80% vegetables, fruits, and beans/daals, I exercise regularly, and I keep a peaceful and calm mindset and try to avoid creating a stressful environment around me. Tea is just another healthy food I consume and also helps me to relax. I drink what teas I like. (It just so happens that all teas I like are lightly processed - greens, whites, and raw pu-erhs.)