Brewing Clean Water: The Metal-Remediating Benefits of Tea Preparation

The study of adsorbent materials rarely extends beyond engineered systems. This research explores metal adsorption resulting from the preparation of tea, which is the most widely consumed beverage globally. Tea is brewed from the processed leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant, a material understudied, relative to its outsized economic and cultural importance. The features that make tea leaves ideal for their intended purpose also help them function as an efficient sorbent. In this Letter, the properties of tea leaves relevant to the adsorption of metal content in drinking water are measured and used to estimate, for the first time, the adsorptive performance under a variety of conditions of tea preparation, with an eye toward public health benefits. We find that the preparation of black tea under typical conditions results in the removal of a meaningful fraction of lead from drinking water and that this value is highly dependent on steeping time.