Get your CreativiTEA Boost!

Have you ever had a deadline but can't get anything creative out of your head?  We all have, of course, but it turns out the juice we should be turning to actually comes from a leaf.

That’s right, according to a study published in the newest volume of Food Quality and Preference journal, a simple cup of tea can give you an instant burst of brainpower and creativity.

Researchers from Peking University’s School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences conducted two tests on up to 50 students, with an average age of 23.  

The first half of the volunteers were given a cup of black tea to drink and the other half were given a glass of water. They drank it immediately before going into one of two different tests.

In the first test, they were asked to make an “attractive and creative” design out of building blocks. For the second group, they were asked to come up with a “cool” name for a new noodle restaurant.

Their results were judged by other, non-participating students for creativity and design and marked on a scale by the researchers.

In the block building test, the tea drinkers scored 6.54 points against 6.03 points for the water drinkers. In the name test, the tea drinkers scored 4.11 against 3.78.

The results show that tea helped both divergent thinking – the process of coming up with a number of new ideas around a central theme and what most people would consider defining creativity.

While the study does admit that the amount of tea involved is relatively small to give truly accurate results, the outcome is still clear: if you want to boost your creativity, you should drink lots of tea!