TURN a small zisha teapot in your hand, admire its design, its deep purple color, exquisite carving and seal. Strike it and hear a tiny metallic ping. Smell the embedded fragrance of green tea, writes Weng Shihui.
Little brown teapots abound in China, but look closely: Many are works of art that are famed for their rich and varied earthen tones, intricate craftsmanship and their ability to brew marvelous tea.
By now we have all heard about the amazing health benefits of chinese green tea. Long used medicinally in China, it has become increasingly popular around the world. Is there a difference between tea grown in China, and tea from other places? What are the origins of tea, and how did it become so popular?
How Tea Begin
Tea is thought to have originated in China at least 2,000 years ago. Because of the time that has passed since then, mystery surrounds the actual beginning of tea-drinking.
Coffee isn’t the only caffeinated beverage to get the gourmet makeover. How to properly tackle tea.
Long before shorts, talls, pumpkin lattes, and frothy half-caf frappuccinos, America was a nation of tea totallers.
Colonists drank black tea with abandon, renouncing it only when Britain’s unjust taxes inspired the Founding Fathers to dump their tea into the ocean. Tea didn’t completely disappear, but it was eclipsed by another caffeinated beverage. “Coffee was closer and cheaper in the 1800s,” says Mark Pendergrast, author of Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World. Unlike tea leaves, beans could be obtained from the Caribbean or from Latin America.
Sculptor and artist Nadia Iliffe has bought the ancient Chinese art of display tea to the UK with the launch of Exotic Teapot.
Tea buds and flowers that have been hand-tied by artisans from China’s Fujian province bloom into floral bouquets and green tea needles when steeped in hot water.
The tea blossoms are individually vacuum-sealed to stay fresh for up to 18 months and are available in resealable pouches of 24 blossoms.
The line-up includes brews such as Red Moon Pearl Display Tea (silver green tea needles encircling a red moon of globe amaranth), White Peony Tea, and Stimulating Rose Buds.
Green tea can help beat superbugs according to Egyptian scientists speaking March, 31, 2008 at the Society for General Microbiology’s 162nd meeting.
The pharmacy researchers have shown that drinking green tea helps the action of important antibiotics in their fight against resistant superbugs, making them up to three times more effective.
Green tea is a very common beverage in Egypt, and it is quite likely that patients will drink green tea while taking antibiotics. The medical researchers wanted to find out if green tea would interfere with the action of the antibiotics, have no effect, or increase the medicines’ effects.
With names such as Hummingbird Nectar and Peaceful Peninsula, the organic teas and tisanes of Angela Macke are blended with both taste and good health in mind. The former registered nurse-turned-master gardener became interested in the many health and medicinal benefits of tea several years ago. She grows most of the ingredients of her 36 blends of black, green, white, and oolong teas, and fruit mélange, chakras, and tisanes on her 12-acre property in Michigan. Macke, the founder of Light of Day Organics, will be in Delaware on Saturday, April 5, to host a tea workshop sponsored by The Global Village Collection, from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Andrews House, 39 West Winter Street.
Spanish and British scientists have discovered how green tea helps to prevent certain types of cancer.
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.
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