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The origins of tea
Shennong, the legendary Emperor of China, inventor of agriculture, tea, and Chinese medicine, was drinking a bowl of boiling water and the wind blew and a few leaves from a nearby tree fell into his water and began to change its colour and tea was born.
I love Oolong tea, I think it is not only my favorite tea, it’s my favorite drink.
In Chinese tea culture, semi-oxidized oolong teas are collectively grouped as q’ngchá (literally “blue-green tea”).Oolong has a taste more akin to green tea than to black tea: it lacks the rosy, sweet aroma of black tea but it likewise does not have the stridently grassy vegetal notes that typify green tea.
The best Oolong has a nuanced flavor profile. It is commonly brewed to be strong, with the bitterness leaving a sweet and pleasant aftertaste. Oolongs produced in the Wuyi Mountains of Fujian Province and in the Central Mountains of Taiwan are world famous.
Oolong tea leaves are often processed and rolled into long curly leaves or into ball-like form similar to gunpowder tea. It is commonly served in Chinese restaurants, to accompany dim sum and other Chinese food.
Foodconsumer.org reporsts that a new study published in the Feb 2008 issue of Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis & Vascular Biology suggests that women may reduce their risk for carotid plaques by simply drinking a few cups of tea a day.
Patricia Khashayar, MD., from Press TV, Tehran writes that aea not only helps fight several cancers and cardiovascular diseases but also relieves headaches and provides a calm mental state.
Researchers at the University of Murcia in Spain (UMU) and the John Innes Center (JIC) in Norwich, England have shown that a compound called EGCG in green tea prevents cancer cells from growing by binding to a specific enzyme. “We have shown for the first time that EGCG, which is present in green tea at relatively high concentrations, inhibits the enzyme dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR), which is a recognized, established target for anti-cancer drugs, ” says Professor Roger Thorneley, of JIC.
Julian Tai says that clinical studies show that the chemical compounds found in green tea may help you to not only avoid cancer, but also fight it on a cellular level. Cancer research continues throughout the country and the world, bringing information about the positive effects of this beverage.
Tangier’s Cafe Hafa, on Morocco’s northern coast, has been serving mint tea since 1921
Mint Tea is also called Touareg tea and is a flavoured tea prepared in northern Africa and in Arabian countries. Mint tea is central to social life in Maghreb countries. The serving of mint tea can take a ceremonial form, especially when prepared for a guest. Whereas cooking is women’s business, the tea is a male affair: the head of family prepares it and serves to the guest, usually, at least three glasses of tea.
ANN ARBOR, MI – A new study from the University of Michigan Health System suggests that a compound in green tea may provide therapeutic benefits to people with rheumatoid arthritis.
“Our research is a very promising step in the search for therapies for the joint destruction experienced by people who have rheumatoid arthritis,” says Salah-uddin Ahmed, Ph.D., lead researcher on the study. Ahmed, a research investigator with the Division of Rheumatology at the U-M Health System, was selected to present the research at the Experimental Biology meeting as the recipient of the Young Scientist Travel Award, given by the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. This study was also selected by the American Society for Nutrition to be featured in a press release.
Herbal teas are an excellent way to maintain your health, experience new tastes, and have been around almost as long as humans have had access to hot water and herbs, which has been a rather long time. Tea has been known in places like China for centuries, and archaeologists believe that even prehistoric man made teas for drinking and soothing ailments.
It is also clear that the uses of water infused with herbs have long been known in tribal cultures around the world, and have been handed down throughout the generations in almost every society. Herbal teas have traditionally held a very important place in natural medicine, before science was able to diagnose and treat with antibiotics and other modern methods. Those who had the knowledge of herbs and how to make herbal teas were highly respected, as their teas had the ability to greatly aid those who suffered from various ailments.
A feature documentary by Les Blank and Gina Leibrecht (www.ginaleibrecht.com) that follows the world-renowned American tea importer, David Lee Hoffman, to some of the most remote regions of China in search of the finest, handmade teas in the world.
Green tea is a true tea, meaning it is made solely with the leaves of Camellia Sinensis, that has undergone minimal oxidation during processing. Many varieties of green tea have been created in countries where it is grown that can differ substantially due to variable growing conditions, processing and harvesting time.
Over the last few decades green tea has begun to be subjected to many scientific and medical studies to determine the extent of its long purported health benefits, with some evidence suggesting regular green tea drinkers may have lower chances of heart disease and contracting certain types of cancer.
Attention is now rightly being paid to the health benefits of white and green teas, the virtues of the much more familiar, and still much more common, black tea, should not be neglected. All three are products of the camellia sinensis plant and as such have many common attributes, particularly in their anti-oxidant functions; the difference between them being entirely attributable to the differing methods by which they are produced.
The fresh, ie unprocessed, leaves of the camellia sinensis plant are rich in compounds known as polyphenols, and particularly those of a type known as catechins, which are powerful anti-oxidants. The problem is that these compounds are easily destroyed by the processing that the leaves go through. In the case of black teas the process, known as fermentation, results in the almost complete oxidation of the catechins resulting in a dramatic loss of their anti-oxidant power.
So-called “herbal teas”, by contrast, are drinks made from infusions of the leaves of a wide variety of other plants. Although these are often very beneficial to health, they are not “teas” at all in the strict sense, this term being restricted to the products of the camellia sinenis plant, and should be considered separately, probably as a branch of herbal medicine or therapy.