Objective: To describe the gender and regional differences in adults' tea drinking pattern found in China Kadoorie Biobank (CKB) survey, involving half million adults, in 10 areas in China.
Methods: The baseline survey of CKB was conducted in 5 urban areas and 5 rural areas in China during 2004-2008. The information on tea drinking of 512 891 adults aged 30-79 years was collected and analyzed.
Results: The overall prevalence of regular tea drinking (i.e., weekly) was 50.7% in males and 21.3% in females. Among 10 areas, Hunan reported the highest regular tea drinking prevalence (74.3% in males, 76.6% in females), while Henan reported the lowest regular tea drinking prevalence (5.5% in males, 1.0% in females). Most regular tea drinkers consumed green tea except those from Zhejiang and Haikou. Hunan reported the highest tea consumption per time (3.8 g in males, 3.1 g in females), per day (6.2 g in males, 4.1 g in females) and per week (38.4 g in males, 25.0 g in females).
Conclusion: The adults' tea drinking pattern i.e. frequency, type, amount of tea and preferred concentration of tea water, varied greatly among the 10 regions covered by CKB study.