Angry Post #1

Once you've admitted to someone that you used to work at a tearoom, automatically you morph into their tea guru, no longer a simple, innocent bystander. Now you are someone able to answer all their (what they consider to be) "crucial" tea issues.

This has been my life ever since my short time spent working at a local tearoom (I am electing to NOT advertise for them on my precious blog, it's a touchy issue). Everyone seems to believe that tearoom employees somehow are filled with all knowledge pertaining to tea, like all tearooms have some Matrix-style rig cramming our brains full until we become mentors for all you novices.

Well I'm here to tell you all something: I'm sick of it! Honestly I don't know that much about tea, but to many of my devout followers, I'm like Tammy Faye Baker. Come on people! Don't believe everything I say!

I apologize for I digress. My point: Until I start receiving respectable questions about tea I will be referring all to this post, listing the 5 facts about tea that I'm sick of repeating.

1. All tea (minus herbals) come from the same plant. Green tea doesn't come from the green tea plant while black tea comes from the black tea plant. They're all from the Camellia Sinensis plant and variations in tea are purely due to processing and/or variation in growing conditions.
   
2. If you insist on using teabags, reuse them! While black teabags can usually only be reused 1 or 2 times, green tea as well as herbal teas such as spearmint can easily brew up to 5 cups. Saves money too.
   
3. Decaf it yourself. No more excuses for not drinking more tea throughout the day. Even if you don't have decaf tea on hand, simply do it yourself. Steep the tea as usual but for no more than 30 seconds, discard the brew and then re-steep the same leaves and voilà! Decaf tea!
4. Use boiling water! Duh, right? However I've seen several people boil water and then just let it sit there for minutes on end, cooling off! Finally they'll get around to making their tea, not surprisingly producing a weak, low quality flavor. If you're making black tea, when the water comes to a boil, pour it over the tea immediately, none of this cooling crap. If you're making green tea, either pour the water over the tea just before it comes to a boil or use it after letting it cool for 10-20 seconds after it boils.
   
5. Yes, tea is healthful. Just get over it and admit it, tea is good for you. Obviously there's no doubt about it. Well maybe there's a minuscule, virtually invisible iota of doubt, but honestly, come on. Just taste the stuff. It's so unmistakably wholesome.
   

Reason to be Green?

For the last week(ish), I've consciously added more green tea to my diet, around 3 cups a day. Plus, unintentionally I haven't had any black tea. Interesting... at least for now, I guess green tea is able to suffice my hot beverage/caffeine quotient. But why, you might ask, did I elect to incorporate this earthy elixir into my routine?
Well, that's a good question.
I'm not really sure. Perhaps I wanted a change, or maybe just because it's healthier.
Or is it??
Most people assume green tea is the healthiest of the teas, but this made me wonder how that's possible since black, green, oolong, pu-erh and white teas all come from the same plant. So then, how can the variations in the processing of these different types of tea account for such drastically different levels of health benefits?
From my wanderings around the internet, it seems that the biggest reason, is simply that green tea is almost always the focus of tea studies. Other types of teas have scarcely been studied. Tea research is definitely still in its early stages.
Having said that, I was able to find one study on black tea conducted by the Netherlands National Institute of Public Health and the Environment. About.com gives a good synopsis. Apparently black tea can do as much as green tea! (Unless, of course, you take milk in your tea.) Both black and green teas were shown to have high levels of (albeit different) antioxidants.
I guess the best thing to do, as WebMD advises, is to just drink lots of tea - at least 6 to 10 cups a day!! I reckon my elementary 3-cups-a-day routine is in need of an upgrade.

p.s. - If you're curious about what exactly the tea benefits are, then check out Wikipedia's page on the topic.

Battle of the Brews

Returning to my argument first brought up last week on the Superiority of Tea, I would like to add to the ever-
growing demise of "the bean" beverage. My post last week definitely stirred some deep feelings readers had regarding their stance on the topic. I had a whopping 4 responses! Indeed, is appears the tea/coffee debate is a black and white subject: you're either a tea person or a coffee person, just like you're either a Beatles person or an Elvis person. Maybe there is no clear right or wrong side to take... but when there's evidence at hand, there's no sense in leaving it unexploited!
Again, my ally, the BBC has produced more evidence against the dreaded bean. A new study shows that regular coffee drinkers are not actually gaining any heightened alertness by having their morning cup. Instead, their morning fix of caffeine simply returns their bodies to normal alertness, no more than your average non-coffee drinker, or even tea drinker for that matter. Interesting! So what does that make me think...Well, at least tea drinkers don't rely on a placebo to get through their day. Muah haha!

The Superiority of Tea

I'm a tea drinker. Ok, occasionally I do indulge in a cup o' Joe, usually just to get through a boring class or stressful test, but I feel the satisfaction I get from a simple cup of tea far outweighs that heightened alertness - and then later complete loss of energy - you get from coffee. I might even go so far as to say I think it's better than water. Preposterous you say? I think not. I've got the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition on my side. BBC News recently published an article showing the EJCN's findings on just how magnificent tea is, claiming that, "Tea not only rehydrates as well as water does, but it can also protect against heart disease and some cancers."Lead author Dr. Ruxton goes on to say, "Tea replaces fluids and contains antioxidants so its got two things going for it." And what does water have to say to this? Even coffee, do you have anything you'd like to add? That's right, you can just stay quite. I always knew tea would come out on top.
While we're on the topic, if you too enjoy the healthiest beverage on Earth, then check out Adagio Teas. It's a beautiful site just look around on and their ingenuiTEA products are great to have. Excuse me while I put the kettle on...

My 10 Random Things - sick version

So I first posted this on my myspace blog, but thought I should share it here as well. I felt this was a good exercise to get writing. Just write a few sentences about any 10 random things that pop into your head. It's surprisingly fun!

1. Gum and carrots, the name of my blog, plus the two things that annoy the hell out of Evan when I chew them. I just can't resist! That crunch of a fresh carrot, or the smack of a good piece of gum!

2. short hair - so I heard this was supposed to be easier. As I recall, with long hair, I could get up in the morning, put a hair tie around it and go. But with short hair, I now understand the concept of "bed head". Not the most flattering look in the morning.

3. Oh Kristin! Of course, she has to be one of my random things. Whether it's getting coffee in the morning or going out for drinks, I have found a new best thing in life with this chica!

4. Another "best thing in life" would have to be all our plants. We have a ridiculous amount, over 30 I think. I just love taking care of them, watching them grow-- ok, I'll just stop right there.

5. So I'm sick right now, and it blows. I know exactly when I started getting sick - during that movie at Kristin's! Damn that movie! I don't know why it did this to me. I'm never watching it again.

6. My congested head is having a hard time with number six...

7. There' one thing in life I wish I was better at: drawing. I have spent much of my education doodling away during class, yet somehow it has not improved my skill at all. Maybe I need a new medium, perhaps colored pencils.

8. So we watched The Evil Dead last night, and I have to be honest, I wasn't that impressed. Ok, I did jump once, but mostly I found myself frustrated with how LONG some of those scenes were. I get it, she got stabbed and it hurt, I don't need to hear her scream about it for 5 minutes!

9. Getting up in the morning and making tea. It's just plain dandy. I'm definitely a morning person, and I feel that is the part of the day I am most happy. Evan is definitely NOT a morning person, but I think I make his morning a little bit better when I hand him his morning cup of tea.

10. Fluffy pillows and flannel blankets. That is where I'm headed now.