Know About Your TEA

1.Tea was discovered by Shen Nung,a Chinesse emperor who was a skilled ruler, creative scientist and patron of the arts in 2737 B.C.

2.Tea is one of the most widely-consumed beverages in the world, second only to water.It has a cooling, slightly bitter, astringent flavor.

3.It has almost no carbohydrates, fat, or protein. Tea is a natural source of the amino acid theanine, methylxanthines such as caffeine and theobromine,and polyphenolic antioxidant catechins.

4.Amazingly, we drink virtually the same tea today that Emperor Shen Nung drank the day he discovered it. Americans drink 140 million cups of tea each day and 80% of that is in the form of iced tea.

5.Only the top 1-2 inches of the mature plant are picked. These buds and leaves are called flushes,and a plant will grow a new flush every seven to ten days during the growing season.

6.The four basic types of true tea are black tea, oolong tea, green tea, and white tea.
The term “herbal tea” usually refers to infusions or tisane of fruit or herbs that contain no Camellia sinensis.

7.In 1904 Englishman Richard Blechynden creates iced tea during a heat wave at the St Louis World Fair. It was an extremely warm day and his hot tea booth was being passed up by the crowds in favor of cold drinks. As desperate measure, since he was out time and money for even coming to the Fair, he added ice to the vats of liquid hot tea and in the process made it one of the highlights of the 1904 World’s Fair.

8.In 1908 New York tea importer Thomas Sullivan inadvertently invents tea bags when he sends tea to clients in small silk bags, and they mistakenly steep the bags whole.

9.Today tea is grown on tea estates and 70% of the tea we drink is grown in Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Argentina and China.

10.Tea is an infusion made by steeping processed leaves, buds, or twigs of the tea bush, Camellia sinensis, in hot water for several minutes, after which it is drunk.

11.According to the American Dietetic Association, a cup of tea contains an average of 40 mg of caffeine, compared to 85 mg as found in a cup of freshly brewed coffee.

12.The addition of milk to tea was first mentioned in 1680 by the epistolist Madame de Sévigné.[45] Many teas are traditionally drunk with milk. These include Indian chai, and British tea blends.

13.In Britain and some Commonwealth countries, the order in which the milk and the tea enter the cup is often considered an indicator of social class.

14.A recent medical study found that certain beneficial effects of tea are lost through the addition of milk.

15.The flavour of the tea can also be altered by pouring it from different heights, resulting in varying degrees of oxidisation.

16.Health Benefits of Tea

Heart Benefits:

• Study finds tea drinkers have lower blood pressure (Archives of Internal Medicine, 2004).

• Tea may lower cholesterol and protect against heart disease (Journal of Nutrition, 2003).

• Black tea may lower “bad” cholesterol (United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center, 2003).

• Tea consumption may help heart disease patients (Circulation: The Journal of the American Heart Association, 2001).

Cancer Prevention:

• Green tea could help stem esophageal cancer. (Harvard Medical School, 2004).

• Green and black tea can slow down the spread of prostate cancer (Center for Human Nutrition at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine, 2004).

• Tea may protect against cancer caused by smoking. (Journal of Nutrition, 2003).

• Green tea and white tea fight colon cancer (Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University study, Carcinogenesis, 2003).

• Hot tea may lower risk of some skin cancers (University of Arizona study, Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention (Vol. 9, No. 7), 2001).

• Green tea consumption may lower stomach cancer risk (University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Public Health study, International Journal of Cancer (Vol. 92: 600-604), 2001).

Hypertension-Reducing Benefits:

• Green and oolong teas reduce risk of hypertension (National Cheng Kung University study, Archives of Internal Medicine, 2004).

Immunity-Boosting Benefits

• Tea believed to boost the body’s defenses (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2003)

Leukemia-Fighting Benefits:

• A green tea component helps kill leukemia cells (Mayo Clinic, 2004).
Alzheimer’s-Fighting Benefits:

• Drinking tea might delay Alzheimer’s Disease (Newcastle University’s Medicinal Plant Research Centre study, Phytotherapy Research, 2004).

AIDS-Fighting Benefits:

• Tea may play a role as an AIDS fighter (University of Tokyo, Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 2003).