And Now For the Debits of Tea Drinking . . .

I have been reading so much lately on the benefits of drinking tea - black tea, green tea, white tea, Pu-erh, Oolong, Sencha . . . but I came up against a debit today while trying to do my semi-regular platelet donation at the Blood Center. They always check your iron levels before they allow you to donate, and since I am almost exclusively donating platelets now instead of whole blood, my iron levels have been great. Back when I was donating whole blood every eight or more weeks (and back when I also had a uterus, I must add), I would sometimes fail the hematocrit level test. You have to have a hematocrit level of at least 38% to be able to donate on any given day. Sometimes I would go as low as maybe 35, 36 . . . 34? These days I am usually in the low 40s. Today I bottomed out at 30 and had to reschedule my donation - not for a week later, but two weeks later. They didn't think one week would be enough time to raise my iron levels to an acceptable place. The first thing they asked was if I had recently made any dietary changes. I thought for a moment and then said I had just started to seriously drink tea over the past couple of weeks.
"Ah-ha!" Both of the blood workers I was speaking with nodded their heads as if that explained it all. Today I learned that the tannins in tea prohibit the absorption of iron and protein into your body. It is recommended that you put milk in your tea, because milk binds to the tannins. Alternatively, drink Rooibos, or red tea from South Africa, which does not contain tannins or caffeine.
So, while just beginning to enjoy my "new" tea habit, I find that I may have to moderate my intake or just drink more Rooibos. I think I'll try the red over the next two weeks and see if I still pass my hematocrit in two weeks.