Amanzi Tea announced today that in celebration of its first Manhattan location opening Saturday, December 6, it is offering free “amanzi tea flu shots” made of double strength, freshly brewed Green tea on Saturdays, December 6, 13, and 20 from noon until 4 p.m.

In a recent study, immunologists at Harvard University discovered that people who drank five cups of tea a day for 2 weeks transformed their immune system T cells into “Hulk cells” that pumped out 10 times more cold and flu virus-fighting interferon than did the immune systems of those who didn’t drink tea.

“We are excited to be in the Big Apple,” says owner Raymond Levy, “and we would like New Yorkers to feel excited to have us. So to introduce ourselves, we want to share the benefits of our product and give everyone a boost for the holidays.”

Green tea has long been known to protect against certain types of cancer, but the fermentation process involved in making black tea was thought to destroy the protective compounds. Now researchers in Britain and Italy have found that when test participants were given extracts of black tea, the equivalent of three or four cups a day, they were protected against the effects of a known carcinogen (Food and Chemical Toxicology, vol 38, p. 1085).