Drinking tea appears to boost the immune system, perhaps helping people fight off or blunt the effect of infections, researchers said.
Non-tea drinkers who downed five to six small cups of black tea per day for two weeks appeared to be better able to fight off bacterial infections, according to the report.

DRINK UP: Tea may help to boost the immune system.
As an explanation for tea's benefits, lab experiments revealed that an ingredient found in black, green, oolong and pekoe teas boosted the ability of immune system cells to attack a bacterial invader.
The experiments used ethylamine, which is produced when the tea ingredient L-theanine is broken down in the liver. Previous research suggests that ethylamine, which is also found in vegetables and wine, may target other pathogens as well, including parasites, viruses and perhaps tumours.
Based on these findings, people looking to ward off diseases might want to add certain teas to their menu, study author Dr Jack Bukowski of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, told Reuters Health.
'I think the elderly would benefit a lot from drinking tea,' he said. 'I think there's no downside to it.'
However, he added that regular tea drinkers still get sick, so people should not throw out their medicine cabinet or tell off their doctors just yet.
'Drinking tea isn't a treatment or a cure for anything,' Dr Bukowski cautioned.
'Probably most (tea drinkers) will still get sick. But people who do get sick will probably get a milder case,' he said.
The study findings appear in the online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Despite the supposed power of tea to fight infection, Dr Bukowski urged people to maintain a healthy perspective on the findings.
'If people are sick, they shouldn't start drinking tea to get better,' he said. 'They should go to the doctor.'