Have a little fat you’d like to lose? Maybe now is a good time to turn on the kettle and pour yourself a cup of this: white tea.

Made from the buds and early leaves of the same plants used to make green and black teas, white tea may have special fat-thwarting powers, a new study suggests.

Fat-Blasting Brew
Fat cells increase or decrease in size, according to your weight. And in a lab study, human fat cells treated with white tea extract accumulated significantly less fat. In fact, the white tea extract reduced the incorporation of fat by as much as 70 percent! The tea also seemed to stimulate the breakdown of fat from mature cells. Get to your ideal weight with this weight loss tracker.

Why White Whittles
Because white tea is less processed than green or black tea, it has more of certain active compounds, like epigallocatechin-3-gallate (an antioxidant) and methylxanthines (theobromine and caffeine). And researchers suspect that these compounds influence fat-cell metabolism by acting on the expression of certain genes. But human studies will be needed to confirm it. In the meantime, here are a few more no-brainer ways to shed pounds:

• Eat slowly. Find out how much more food speed-eaters shovel in compared with leisurely diners.
• Try a pill. Here’s a legitimate pill that may actually help women lose pregnancy weight gain postpartum.
• Limit variety. Find out why the YOU Docs recommend eating the same foods for breakfast and lunch.

Read more RealAge tips on the many benefits of drinking tea.