7
Reasons to Drink Green Tea
The steady stream of good news about green
tea is getting so hard to ignore that even java junkies are beginning to sip
mugs of the deceptively delicate brew. You'd think the daily dose of
disease-fighting, inflammation-squelching antioxidants - long linked with heart
protection - would be enough incentive, but wait, there's more! Lots more.
CUT YOUR CANCER RISK
Several polyphenols - the potent antioxidants
green tea's famous for - seem to help keep cancer cells from gaining a foothold
in the body, by discouraging their growth and then squelching the creation of
new blood vessels that tumors need to thrive. Study after study has found that
people who regularly drink green tea reduce their risk of breast, stomach,
esophagus, colon, and/or prostate cancer.
SOOTHE YOUR SKIN
Got a cut, scrape, or bite, and a little
leftover green tea? Soak a cotton pad in it.
The tea is a natural antiseptic that relieves
itching and swelling. Try it on inflamed breakouts and blemishes, sunburns, even
puffy eyelids. And that's not all. In the lab, green tea helps block
sun-triggered skin cancer, whether you drink it or apply it directly to the skin
- which is why you're seeing green tea in more and more sunscreens and
moisturizers.
STEADY YOUR BLOOD PRESSURE
Having healthy blood pressure - meaning below
120/80 - is one thing. Keeping it that way is quite another. But people who sip
just half a cup a day are almost 50 percent less likely to wind up with
hypertension than non-drinkers. Credit goes to the polyphenols again (especially
one known as ECGC). They help keep blood vessels from contracting and raising
blood pressure.
PROTECT YOUR MEMORY, OR YOUR MOM'S
Green tea may also keep the brain from
turning fuzzy. Getting-up-there adults who drink at least two cups a day are
half as likely to develop cognitive problems as those who drink less. Why? It
appears that the tea's big dose of antioxidants fights the free-radical damage
to brain nerves seen in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
STAY YOUNG
The younger and healthier your arteries are,
the younger and healthier you are. So fight plaque build-up in your blood
vessels, which ups the risk of heart disease and stroke, adds years to your
biological age (or RealAge), and saps your energy too. How much green tea does
this vital job take? About 10 ounces a day, which also deters your body from
absorbing artery-clogging fat and cholesterol.
LOSE WEIGHT
Oh yeah, one more thing. Turns out that green
tea speeds up your body's calorie-burning process. In the
every-little-bit-counts department, this is good news!
- 2007 March 6 YAHOO!
Tea Sommeliers: Steeped in Tea
North
America’s first tea steward training program is set to train tea
experts-to-be.
A tea sommelier? Well, lah-di-dah, you might
think. Say that to Bill Kamula and he'll have you convinced tea is just as
complex and high-maintenance as wine.
"There is as much detail and depth as
wine," he says. "The claim is made there are 9,000 green teas in
China. I would challenge the French to come up with 9,000 wines."
Kamula is an instructor in the one-year tea
sommelier program at George Brown College in Toronto and will give introductory
sessions at the Vancouver Coffee and Tea Show for the retail industry today and
Thursday.
The sommelier course is the first in North
America, a reflection of a surge in tea popularity. In 1991, an average Canadian
drank 36 litres of tea a year; latest figures have us knocking back about 79
litres per year. In fact, the Tea Association of Canada is in talks with two
culinary institutions in Vancouver to bring the tea sommelier program here.
"Vancouver is a natural," says
Louise Roberge, president of the association. British Columbians apparently are
the biggest drinkers of specialty teas in Canada and "adventurous."
Tea is where coffee was a decade ago, says
Kamula. "It's not on every street corner but it's happening fast. The
industry is responding with specialty teas, rarer and more unusual ones. A
decade ago, green tea was rare."
Kamula admits some of his students wondered
if they shouldn't come up with a new term for sommelier.
"The reality is, it was a term that was
already out there, being used," he says.
The ever-expanding tea market is tied to
health claims associated with it. Last week, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency
added green tea to its list of products, calling it an antioxidant. "It's
okay to state that on the package now. It's so exciting," says Roberge. The
CFIA, she says, is still looking at the health advantages of black tea.
"There's still not enough science. They want to see more research."
The West Coast led the charge for renewed
interest in tea and doing away with the auntie and granny image, Kamula says.
There are three categories of tea types:
green, black and oolong. Green teas are dried as soon as picked and the leaves
remain green; they are typical of Japanese teas; Chinese "green" teas
are pan-fried and become amber; black teas are oxidized in air, which turns the
leaves black. "It's like when you cut an apple. The colour changes,"
says Roberge. Oolong tea is not totally oxidized and not dried right away.
"If you compare it to wine, green tea is like white wine, black tea is like
red and oolong is like rosé," she says.
In Japan, the notes are grassier with the
scent of kelp, seaweed, grass and the fresh smell of seashore. Chinese palates,
however, appreciate bitterness as a taste quality.
"North Americans haven't developed a
taste for that," says Kamula.
"Chinese teas have a vegetal quality,
reminding you of beans, asparagus, or chard. It's sweeter, rounder, softer than
black. They rarely take milk or dairy so they don't need the astringency of
black teas."
Kamula expands the wine comparison. To have
tea with food, you have to understand the fundamentals of food as well as the
qualities of the tea; how it reacts, how it enhances.
If you're eating a rich, creamy, goat cheese,
it often pairs nicely with Japanese green tea because it's grassy and fresh;
roasted Chinese green has a more vegetal quality."
An oily dim sum meal would pair well with
"pu-erh" Chinese tea, pronounced poo-urr.
"It's aptly named. It has a strong nose,
like limburger cheese does. It's the only tea that's fermented after production
and like cheese, it ages and improves."
Darjeeling, he says, is the typical afternoon
tea because it goes well with rich, fatty goods like clotted cream and jam.
Breakfast blends were created with the idea
of adding milk. "It's fully oxidized and brisk and astringent. Milk
moderates these qualities. Europeans historically put milk and sugar in their
tea and developed lines which could take both."
Unless it's pu-erh, tea should be used within
a year or so.
"It's best kept in an airtight container
away from moisture and light, which degrade the quality. They're best bought in
small quantities and used quickly," Kamula says.
Brands and price aren't indicative of
quality, and that's where the sommelier jumps in.
"The expertise they provide is to judge
whether it's just a fancy tin or a plain paper bag with a rare tea.
"They can judge freshness by eye, nose
and taste and learn to determine the quality."
Generally, black teas should steep at 200 F
to 205 F; green teas, at 160 F to 170 F; and oolong is best at about 205 F.
- 2009 VANCOUVER SUN
For Chinese, a tea break is almost a
cultural event
This is going to be a very lucky year for me. At
least, that’s what the tea leaves say. As Wei Fang Cheng prepares the tea,
pouring hot water over a tightly-bound bundle of jasmine leaves, the leaves open
to reveal a bright pink centre. Peering into the golden-hued glass cup, Cheng
raises her head with a smile.
“A double flower!” exclaims Cheng, dressed in a
royal-red satin jacket as she presides over a hand-carved tea tray. “You are
very lucky.”
Having a cup of tea is so much more than tossing a bag
into a pot at Mu Lan Chinese Cultural Centre, a new shop on Lower Water Street.
There, the tea ceremony revels in the sensory exploration and appreciation of
tea. Using small, pretty, unglazed teacups, each cup is just large enough to
hold two swallows of tea — and then there’s a new kind to try. The ceremony
emphasizes the taste, smell, and comparison of teas in successive rounds of
sipping.
On a recent visit, this dedicated coffee-drinker had
my senses revived by the nuances of tea: the delicate flavour of Long Jing Tea;
the bitter taste of Ku Ding, which looks like a cigar leaf in its dried state;
and my favourite, the slightly sweet Angel Jasmine Peach Delight, the variety
that yielded the double flower. There are also delightful nibblies to sample: a
walnut crisp, almond cookies and the intriguingly named mooncake.
“What I would like to do here is introduce Chinese
culture to Western people,” says Chai Chu Thompson, the owner of Mu Lan. She
named the centre in honour of the girl warrior of Chinese legend (known to
Westerners through the Disney movie).
A tiny woman bustling with energy, Thompson is a
retired DNA scientist and dedicated volunteer with the Universal Shelter
Association. Through the shelter, she helped two Chinese women to get back on
their feet, and who in turn, encouraged her to open the business.
Its shelves are filled with beautiful vases, tea sets,
antiques, artwork and fashions, all imported from China. But Mu Lan is more than
a shop. Thompson hosts Mahjong tournaments, and organizes classes in Tai Chi,
calligraphy, and watercolour painting. During the Chinese New Year later this
month, a visiting artist from Shanghai will give a demonstration of seal-stone
carving, brush painting and calligraphy.
“I want people to come here, take a look around and
stay for some tea,” says Thompson, 68, who hails tea’s restorative powers.
Red and green teas are both high in antioxidants that many researchers believe
help prevent cancer and heart disease, and their antibacterial powers are said
to combat cavities and gum disease.
- 2003 January 15 Daily
News
RECIPE:
Mooncakes
This dense little cake has a lotus-paste filling.
Dough:
300 ml (11/4 cups) maple syrup
300 ml (11/4 cups) corn oil
1 egg
1.125 ml (41/2 cups) all purpose flour
Mix together. Set aside.
Filling:
1 can Chinese lotus paste (available at Chinese
groceries)
1/2 lb (450g) trail mix with coconut, finely chopped
Mix together. Form balls, about 2.5 cm (1 inch) in
diameter.
With dough, make a ball about 1.5 inches (3
centimetres). Hand kneed the dough into a cup shape and tuck the filling ball
inside. With fingers, coax the dough over top of the filling.
Put into a mould. (The cakes at Mu Lan are shaped in a
wooden mould with a design of Chinese characters. Muffin tins would also work
but without the nice design.) Turn out and place on cookie tin. Bake at 350°F
for 20 minutes. Glaze tops with an egg white mixed with one-third the volume of
water. Put under the grill until golden brown.
Makes 20 cakes.
Consumption of tea is booming as cafes
return to an old favourite
PANTUO, China - In a remote valley between steep,
rocky peaks in the southeastern province of Fujian sits one of China's newest
attractions -- an amusement park dedicated entirely to tea.
Smiling attendants dressed as Song dynasty noblewomen
and Tibetan nomads greet visitors to a Disney-like collection of fake imperial
pavilions, man-made hills and ponds decorated by stone lanterns and even
full-sized plaster models of tea trees.
Tenfu Tea Museum, deep in the region that grows
China's famous Oolong tea, is hours from the nearest airport. Yet thousands of
Chinese tourists have made the journey since it opened a year ago.
"I brought my 11-year-old son here because I felt
he needed to learn more about China's cultural heritage," said Guo Zuchun,
36, an engineer who drove six hours from neighbouring Guangdong province.
"No one taught me about this when I was growing up."
Chinese are rediscovering tea, that most
quintessential of their culture's drinks.
Legend has it that tea was first discovered by a
Chinese emperor 5,000 years ago when some leaves accidentally fell into his cup.
From there, the drink spread around the globe. The Chinese word cha became chai
in Arabic, chay in Russian and tea in English.
The bitter blend of cured leaves and hot water is one
of the bedrocks of China's identity, as typical of the ancient culture as
chopsticks and Chinese characters. It was once a staple of imperial courtiers
and poets, who practised elaborate preparation rituals and wrote volumes on the
drink.
But tea seemed to fall out of favour in modern times.
In the 1960s, fervent communists smashed priceless teapots as symbols of an
unwanted past. More recently, urban youth embraced a western-style latte
culture.
In the last few years, however, tea consumption has
begun to skyrocket, and to appeal to increasingly up-market tastes.
In Shanghai, China's largest and richest city, average
annual consumption has more than quadrupled since 1992 to one kilogram per
person, said Liu Qigui, head of the Shanghai Tea Institute, a government group
that promotes tea.
In the same decade, the number of cafes in the city
specializing in tea jumped from three to 3,000, he said. That compares with 25
Starbucks coffee stores.
Most of those gains have come since 1998, as rising
wealth has brought a newfound sense of self-confidence in China's past, Liu
said.
Many new tea shops draw younger crowds by playing pop
music and offering cold teas flavoured with chocolate and strawberry.
Other shops cater to more traditional palates.
Along one of Shanghai's most chic streets, the Tangyun
Tea House is marked by paper lanterns and an entrance lined with thickets of
young bamboo. Behind the door stands a wooden statue of Lu Yu, a Tang dynasty
poet revered as the "saint of tea."
Inside, in rooms filled with elegant wood furniture
and traditional music playing in the background, customers pay up to 88 yuan, or
$16 Cdn, per cup for brews with names like Pearl over Seashell and Plum and
Bamboo.
Visitors at the Tenfu museum in Pantuo show a keen
interest in tea's painstaking production process and ancient history, curators
said.
"We want to learn more about what we once
had," said Li Shuzhen, head of research at the museum.
Tea has never ceased being a fixture of life in China,
with farmers in even the poorest regions enjoying steaming cups. But the
complete rejection of China's past in the first decades of communist rule wiped
away the higher cultural accomplishments that once surrounded the drink.
Today, the new upscale tea cafes complain they can't
find employees with an adequate knowledge of preparing different teas and
traditional ways to serve them. -
2003 January 7 Associated
Press
More good news for
tea drinkers
Black and green tea mimic action of Alzheimer's drugs
According to a new study published in Phytotherapy
Research, both green and black tea inhibit the activity of enzymes
associated with the development of Alzheimer's disease.
Researchers
at England's Newcastle University, discovered that both green and black tea
inhibited the activity of the enzyme acetylcholinesterase (AChE), which breaks
down the neurotransmitter, acetylcholine. Alzheimer's is characterized by a drop
in acetylcholine.
Perricone
readers know that I have long advocated replacing that cup of coffee with
tea-especially green tea. If you
have not yet introduced green tea into your daily regimen, consider the
following fascinating facts:
- Although
black and green tea hail from the same plant (Latin names of the species are
Camellia thea, Thea sinensis or Camellia sinesis), only
green tea also obstructed the activity of beta-secretase, which plays a role
in the production of protein deposits in the brain that are associated with
Alzheimer's disease.
- The
positive effects of green tea lasted for an entire week, while the
enzyme-inhibiting properties of black tea only lasted for one day.
- Coffee
has no effect on these enzymes.
As
Professor Clive Ballard, director of research at the Alzheimer's Society,
stated: "This interesting research builds on previous evidence that
suggests that green tea may be beneficial due to anti-oxidant properties."
Alzheimer's
disease is an inflammatory brain disease-and anti-oxidants are Nature's anti-inflammatories.
It makes perfect sense that anti-oxidant-rich green tea would provide
great, protective benefits to all organ systems.
And, as
we know from the Brain-Beauty Connection, what is therapeutic to the brain is
also therapeutic and restorative to the skin.
- 2004 October 27 by
Nicholas V, Perricone Dr. Perricone's Skin Science Update
BUBBLE
TEA
CREDIT: Illustration by Alicia Kowalewski, Photo by Chris
Bolin
Five years ago, the greatest soft- drink flop since
New Coke appeared on store shelves across North America. Orbitz, the bastard
child of the Clearly Canadian Beverage Corporation, was a concoction of sweet
liquid and coloured, globular gelatin balls, packaged in a bottle shaped like a
lava lamp. The marketing campaign left much to be desired. ("Set gravity
aside and prepare to embark on a tour into the bowels of the Orbiterium,"
declared the Web site's home page.) But there was a greater obstacle to its
success, because North Americans had trouble understanding why anyone would want
slimy balls in a drink. The Beverage Network, a Web site aimed at the soft-drink
industry, summed up the public's reaction to the drink-with-bits idea in its
review of Orbitz's Vanilla Orange variety: "Atrocious," it wrote.
"It is really impossible to enjoy a beverage that has balls floating in it.
Stay away from this beverage."
Orbitz was discontinued in 1998, less than a year
after its launch. Most who encountered it dismissed it as the product of a
marketing department not ahead of its time, but rather completely out of touch
with reality. In truth, the folks at Clearly Canadian were not as hare-brained
as they seemed. Something was going on with beverages featuring gelatinous
pieces over in Asia -- there, new shops and stands were spreading like wildfire,
serving a drink sometimes called "boba tea" or "tapioca milk
tea," but usually named "bubble tea."
Of course, bubble tea shops are now ubiquitous in
major North American cities. In the seven-block radius that surrounds
Vancouver's Asiatown, there are no fewer than 17 bubble tea shops. And that's
not counting the bubble tea outlets in other areas, including the many stalls
found in suburban malls across Canada. These outlets, and the colourful, fat-strawed
drinks they serve, have become part of the fabric of our cities. The positive
reaction bubble tea received in Canada, after the bust of Orbitz, is a tribute
to the value of timing in marketing.
"Perfection, a perfect party in a cup,"
wrote Toronto's Eye magazine in October, 2000. "What's not to like about
sweet milky tea, exotic flavour shots and the cluster of little tapioca balls --
or "pearls" -- waiting like sunken treasure at the bottom of each
plastic cup?"
In some ways, bubble tea is the quintessential Asian
fad, all bright colours and crazy shapes in hundreds of different combinations
-- almost like Pokémon you can eat. You start with black or green tea, add one
of dozens of flavour powders (pineapple, pomegranate, sesame, the list is
endless). You have it with milk or without, ice it, shake it up, and serve
as-is, or with tapioca balls or coconut-jelly squares at the bottom. As with
most made-in-Asia trends being sold to North America, the introductory pitch
went something like: "It's new! It's Asian! It's cool! Have one! You'll
see!"
But unlike many of the Asian fads that have reached
North America, this unlikely product, which hundreds of thousands of Canadians
have tried by now, seems to have some staying power. Still, bubble tea remains
one of the more mysterious junk food varieties we consume, its provenance mostly
unknown, yet no doubt wondered about by most who buy it. Now that North America
has been pursuaded to try a drink you can eat, the question is who came up with
this thing in the first place?
The beverage has been around for a few years, having
coasted past the realm of fad into that of the longer-lasting trend, so it's a
story worth looking into. And it's one that begins across the sea, in the
kitchen of a sweet-toothed, mad-scientist tea shop owner in the Taiwanese city
of Taichung.
Throughout Asia, there is a long tradition of what the
Chinese call QQ drinks, "QQ" being onomatopoeia for
"chew-chew." The Vietnamese, for example, have a love of
fruit-and-jelly dessert drinks. Filipino children have long enjoyed sago, a
sweet drink with tapioca in the bottom. Asia is big on the party-in-your-mouth
concept. Go ahead: Mix any chewy, sweet thing with any drink you can find.
Except tea. Don't mess with the tea. From the moment
it was first popularized in China during the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907), tea has
been brewed almost exclusively in water and consumed hot and pure. The Europeans
were the first to add milk and sugar, in the 17th century. The Americans were
the first to ice it (surprisingly, a mid-20th century innovation). But for most
of Asia, over the centuries, the only reassuring constant has been hot, plain
tea. In Japan, the tea ceremony became a religious rite.
In order for bubble tea to be invented, then, someone
had to be enough of a lateral thinker to disrupt a thousand years of tradition.
As a young man growing up in Taiwan, Liu Han-Chieh, now 50, watched his father
consume countless pots of tea. "It was very bitter, small-pot tea," he
says through an interpreter from his office in Taichung, Taiwan's second-largest
city. "I couldn't drink it."
The turning point for him came in his teens, when he
attended a family wedding. Liu says it is a Taiwanese custom to give a gift of
sweetened tea to your in-laws. "I drank it and I thought, 'Why can't tea
taste like this all the time?' "
After two years of university studies, Liu opened a
tea shop. Tea shops are everywhere in Taiwan -- a focal point of social life.
Here, dozens of blends are prepared with great care (some teas require boiling
water, while others call for water just before it reaches the boiling point).
Liu served the traditional fare at his shop. But behind the scenes, in his
kitchen, he experimented. In a country where milk is scarcely drunk and indeed
many citizens are lactose-intolerant, Liu became obsessed with milk-based tea.
He brewed it, put it on ice and served it cold -- a double heresy to local
tastes. But it worked, and Liu takes credit for popularizing iced milk tea in
Taiwan in the early 1980s.
Then, to add texture, he began experimenting with
fresh fruit, syrups, yam powders and various Taiwanese candies, before happening
upon tapioca pearls in 1988. He liked it and put it to the test with friends.
(Some Internet accounts wrongly claim Liu also invented the tapioca pearls. Liu
says he merely had the gall to put them in the tea.) It was hardly an instant
sensation, but "the people who tried it said they liked it," he
recalls. "So I kept it on the menu and news spread by word of mouth."
Bubble tea might have remained a quaint oddity,
available only in Taichung, were it not for the arrival of a Japanese television
crew. Liu cannot remember the show's name, but says it was a program aimed at
young adults that scoured Southeast Asia in search of new things. It aired a
segment featuring Liu's bubble tea and, within days, he was fielding calls from
curious businessmen in Japan and Hong Kong. Then a Japanese QQ drink association
(chewy drinks are popular enough to warrant their own trade association in
Japan) held a meeting in Taiwan. Its members tried bubble tea, liked it, and
brought the idea home.
By the early '90s, bubble tea was pervasive in Japan
and Hong Kong. From there, international traders pushed the product into
Chinatowns across North America, where it flourished, partly because it was
"big overseas." By the late '90s, in the cities where it had really
caught on, bubble tea moved outward to non-Asian shopping areas and night-life
districts. By 2000, a veritable boom was underway, with bubble operations
opening up across such hubs as Yonge Street in Toronto.
The drink was popular partly because it was big in
Asia, but also because it arrived at a peculiar moment in the history of the
North American beverage industry: Throughout the second half of the 1990s, the
North American palate was developing a taste for increasingly bizarre
caffeinated drinks. At the start of the 1990s, Snapple gave consumers taste for
different flavours of iced tea, such as peach or raspberry, which set the stage
for more complicated iced tea products, such as Arizona's Asian plum tea and
Sobe's green tea with ginseng. At the same time, the frothy "mochaccino
frappés" and "iced chai lattes" being served at Starbucks and
elsewhere were becoming more like milkshakes or drinkable sundaes, and less like
traditional coffee or tea. It's no coincidence that, at the same time bubble tea
was taking hold in North America, even Tim Hortons was introducing its own iced
cappuccino, known as the IceCap, essentially a coffee slurpee.
Of course, there was one crucial difference between
these beverages and Liu's. An iced chai latte might seem like a newfangled idea,
but its texture is consistent the whole way through. There are dozens of small
oddities that make up the bubble tea experience, but surely the weirdest one of
all is the alarming spectre of viscous tapioca balls or jiggly jelly squares
slithering their way up the length of the wide-gauge straw toward your mouth. An
anticipatory "Ew!" is written on every first-timer's face as they suck
it up.
But now that bubble tea must break the middle of the
mainstream to keep growing, some in the business are worried. Will bubble tea be
the next sushi, which developed a following beyond its mid-80s modishness and
became a staple feature of North American life? Or will it be the next
Tamagotchi, the virtual pet that was bought by the millions in 1997 and then
disappeared altogether?
Greg Tieu, of Bubble Tea Canada, an importer of all
products and equipment required in a bubble tea shop, from straws to tapioca
pearls, says bubble tea's breakthrough came thanks to the youth market. Kids
will try anything once, but often, also twice. "Now, some of my most
successful clients are mall kiosks," Tieu says, indicating this is a good
sign, as mall sales mean youth sales. "Now [malls] just move bubble
tea."
The newness of the experience has carried the product
until now. "The people in the bubble tea business have had to find a way to
keep selling in high volumes," says Tieu, who admits trends such as bubble
tea can experience sudden death very easily. The hope is in flavouring. In the
1990s, the early popular flavours were generally fruity. Last year, coconut was
the best-seller, as was café mocha, which is essentially coffee-flavoured tea.
Now tastes such as avocado have hit the market. The thinking seems to be that,
if the flavours keep expanding, the newness of the experience will never wear
off.
Back in Taiwan, Liu Han-Chieh doesn't have to worry
about that. He was brazen enough to create a QQ drink with tea, and his
invention remains ubiquitous, most of all in Taiwan. He is a wealthy man, with
14 tea shops and more than 300 employees. He now operates his own laboratory
kitchen, where 20 people do nothing but brainstorm new tea drinks. He recently
began selling jasmine tea brewed with lemons.
"I am now working on a mixture of green tea with
fresh tomatoes," he says. "I love tasting tea. I earn my living from
my hobby. I am a happy man."
Liu is still surprised that his drink has spanned the
globe so quickly. He holds no patents or trademarks on his invention, so he
doesn't get a cut of international sales. He doesn't care. "Bubble tea is
like the Big Mac of Taiwan," he says. "Everyone in the world knows it
and has eaten it, and it comes from here. All Taiwan is proud of bubble
tea." -
2003 January 11 Saturday
Post
