Cardew Club News » 2007 » October

Rich Tao hurriedly brings a cake of pu’er, a fermented tea, into Floating Leaves Tea in Ballard. He unwraps it and lets owner Shiuwen Tai take a peek at the cake, which looks like a brown disk of dirt and twigs.

It’s Tai’s favorite type of tea.

Whenever Tao, a customer and local real-estate agent, gets time, he likes to stop in and share his latest tea import. He and Tai often sit and drink in the Chinese custom — slowly brewing green teas, oolongs or pu’ers in tiny tea pots and sniffing the fragrance from teaware specifically designed to capture the smell.

Is Green tea is good for weight loss?

Yes, believe it or not, more and more often you’ll find green tea (or green tea extract) included in the compilations of many of the more popular weight loss supplements today. Tea has been used as an aid for weight loss. Drinking a cup of tea with each meal is a protocol for using tea successfully as a metabolic stimulant. Tea by itself carries only 4 calories per serving, and it’s most healthy when consumed with nothing added. The caffeine in tea increases body function to help burn more calories and the polyphenols seem to aid in the digestion of fat, truly making it a Chinese diet tea.

Feeling blue or bloated? Instead of reaching into the medicine cabinet, try herbal teas as a first line of defense for what ails you.

“People want to take control of their own health, and they want to do something other than medicine,” said Bonnie Taylor, owner of Loose Leaf Tea Bar.

Herbs have been used for medicinal purposes for more than 5,000 years, said Kim Drake, owner of Tea Time Nashville.

And herbal teas are experiencing a renaissance with an assortment now available in fair trade and organic varieties, she said. “We’re a society that is trying to get away from chemicals and quick fixes,” Drake said.

First, ditch the tea bags. Tea in bags tends to be the lowest grade of leaf, and the bags impede steeping. Buy loose-leaf tea and brew it in a pot or cup that allows for free circulation. That means no tea-ballers, either.

In China and Japan, tea drinkers use the smallest possible pot for the number of people to be served and keep a thermos of hot water handy for re-steeps. That’s so they don’t have to leave water standing on leaves. That can create bitterness.

Brewing a pot of traditional Chinese tea takes more than a teabag.

One tightly sealed sack of loose leaf tea, a seven-piece utensil set, good quality water and at least 10 minutes of patience are needed to make Chinese-style tea:

1. Choose oolong or related varieties of tea from a vacuum-packed bag no more than a month or two old. Ideally use spring water, but if you have to rely on tap water then use tap water that’s already been boiled.

2. Fill about one-third of a small tea pot with tea leaves.

According to the Australian scientists drinking tea on a regular basis, known to have various health advantages, and it may be beneficial for the bones too.

Health experts in Perth has examined 275 elderly women aged between 70 to 85, and discovered that those who drank tea experienced superior bone density at their hips and less bone loss as compared to those (women) who didn’t drink tea.

It was a larger five-year analysis of calcium supplements and osteoporosis, a disease that makes the bones weak and raises the fractures risk.

People who drink at least a pint of green tea each day have a lower risk of death, a Japanese study shows.

The lower overall death risk among green tea drinkers appears to be due to a lower risk of death from heart disease. The benefit of green tea is especially pronounced in women, find Shinichi Kuriyama, MD, PhD, Tohoku University School of Public Policy in Sendai, Japan, and colleagues.