I drink green tea fairly regularly- partly because I genuinely like the taste and partly because it sort of feels like I'm doing something "healthy". Green tea is often casually treated as some kind of panacea- it allegedly burns fat, boosts your metabolism, lowers your risk of cancer, improves your skin, reduces your chances of developing heart disease, etc. However, it is not clear if this information is mostly fact or folklore.
Conclusions as to whether green tea actually increases energy expenditure and promotes fat oxidation are contradictory. One study found that green tea extract significantly boosted fat oxidation in healthy men when compared to a placebo or just caffeine alone. Others have concluded, however, that this effect is negligible- a report from Dalhousie University analyzing multiple studies has found that the consumption of green tea has no statistically significant
effect on weight loss.
However, studies have shown that drinking green tea reduces the chance of developing cancers within humans. Major ingredients within green tea can inhibit urokinase, an enzyme that can promote cancer growth. However, some studies have shown that in order to reap the benefits of green tea, one would have to drink significantly more than just one cup a day.
SOURCES: (http://golemxiv.dh.meduohio.edu/pdf/Nature.pdf, http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/70/6/1040.long, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23235664
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