Studies indicate that white tea has higher antioxidant levels than either green or black tea. All three teas come from the same plant — the difference is in the harvesting and preparation.

White tea is taken during the earliest stage of tea harvesting, while black tea is picked in the last stages, and the green variety is harvested at some point in the middle.

Black tea is cooked to make it black. That process creates a group of compounds called theaflavins, which have anticancer effects.

But the real advantage to white tea — besides its higher antioxidant content — is that it contains the lowest levels of fluoride of any tea.

Black tea has the highest amount and green tea is somewhere in between.

Fluoride in tea comes from the soil and is sucked up by the plant and concentrated in the leaves. Some teas have very high levels of fluoride — as much as 20 to 30 parts per million.

One safe way to remove fluoride is to add calcium carbonate to your cup of tea. This binds the fluoride and greatly reduces its toxicity.

If tea growers would add lime to the soil, that would prevent the plant’s roots from absorbing fluoride.