Cardew Club News

A truly English tea is being plucked and brewed at the country’s first tea estate in Cornwall. Plus two delicious Fairtade teatime recipes.

The South West is the home of the cream tea and it can now be enjoyed at a whole host of locations in the region with a truly English cuppa.

England’s first tea estate at Tregothnan, in Cornwall, takes advantage of the mild climate and humidity to grow Chinese and Indian leaf tea which is hand-picked from April to October and blended with other exotic leaves to make four different varieties (Classic, Afternoon, Earl Grey and Green).

Unless you’ve been under a rock for the past decade, you probably know that tea has more than a few health benefits. But if you’ve relied on bagged teas for your fix, you may be convinced that all tea is bitter.

Thankfully, you’re wrong. A cup of tea, prepared correctly, doesn’t require a load of none-too-healthy sugar.

But therein lies the problem: A pile of leaves doesn’t come with directions, and the number of tea gadgets on the market makes you want to run back to the bagged-tea aisle.

Scientists in the UK have found that drinking black tea could help prevent diabetes.

The report, which is published in the latest issue of the journal ‘Aging Cell’, indicates that certain constituents of tea could act as an insulin substitute, potentially able to combat type 2 diabetes, the most common form of the disease.

Diabetes develops when the body fails to make enough insulin. Researchers at Scotland’s Dundee University found that several black tea constituents, known as theaflavins and thearubigins, mimicked insulin action, the BBC online reported.

Drinking tea could help combat diabetes, scientists have claimed.

The potentially therapeutic properties in black tea have been discovered by scientists at the University of Dundee.

Green tea has long been held to possess various health benefits.

Dr Graham Rena, of the university’s Neurosciences Institute, said his team’s research into tea compounds is at a pre-clinical, experimental stage.

But he said: “There is definitely something interesting in the way these naturally occurring components of black tea may have a beneficial effect, both in terms of diabetes and our wider health.”

Did you have tea parties when you were growing, as my sister and I did with our dolls? I still have a few of these odds and ends of tea sets we used. Do you still have a fascination with tea pots and tea cups and trying various types of tea?

As writer Amy Palanjian says, “With a charming pot, teatime can be as magical as it was when you were six.”

Women who drink tea may be protecting themselves from a build-up of artery-clogging plaque, so lowering their risk for heart disease and stroke, findings from a French study suggest.

Dr. Mahmoud Zureik and colleagues found that older women who reported drinking at least three cups of tea a day were less likely to have plaque in the carotid arteries in their neck than those drinking less tea.

The investigators, all with INSERM, France’s national institute for medical research, report their findings in the journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology.

Since the rise of the humble teabag which was introduced to the UK by Tetley Tea in 1953, the art of making a real cup of English tea has been on the decline, with many ‘tea drinkers’ choosing to mash their tea in a mug. This article tells you how to brew a real cup of English tea, and urges people to dig out their teapot and engage in the social function of tea drinking. We also address the controversial issue of when to add the milk.