Does your work require you to be creative? But do you sometimes find it difficult to come up with unique and innovative ideas? Well here’s an easy solution to that problem – drink a cup of tea.

According to a recent study conducted at Peking University, drinking tea can help to boost your creativity. Researchers asked two groups of students to engage in two activities that required creative thought…

  • During the first activity, they had to construct a cool structure out of wooden blocks.
  • During the second activity, they had to come up with a fun, unique name for a ramen noodle shop.

One group of students was given tea to drink. The other group was given hot water. In the end, the tea drinkers built much cooler structures and came up with much more clever ramen shop names. The researchers concluded that tea had a significant effect on their creativity. (Although I must point out that one of the examples that the researchers gave of a cool ramen shop name was “No Ramen Here.” Is that really creative or just confusing? I question that. But whatever – moving on!)

Why does tea have this effect? One possible reason is because of the caffeine and theanine that’s found in tea, which have both been linked to increased alertness. But in the study, the tea-drinking group of students didn’t actually ingest much tea. And they got to work on their activities right away – before the caffeine and theanine could have had a chance to take effect.

So it’s more likely that the tea was simply soothing. It had a relaxing effect, it made the students feel good, and that helped them to be more creative. But hey, whatever the reason, it did have an effect. And tea is tasty! So the next time you need a boost of creativity, go ahead and drink a cup of tea. It’s an easy, delicious way to get your innovative ideas flowing.

 

Huang, Y., Choe, Y., Lee, S., Wang, E., Wu, Y., & Wang, L. (2018). Drinking tea improves the performance of divergent creativity. Food Quality and Preference, 66, 29-35.

 

Stillman, J. (2018, March 5). A cup of tea can make you more creative, new study shows. Inc. Retrieved from: https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/a-cup-of-tea-can-make-you-more-creative-new-study-shows.html