Archive for the 'Tea' Category
The Joy of Tea
Enjoying a hot, soothing beverage in the comfort of your own home can be just what the doctor called for. Spend a quiet evening sipping delicious tea and experience the magic of figuratively leaving everything behind. For a few moments, let your mind clear itself of all the day’s stresses. Close your eyes and inhale the fragrant aromas from your tea cup.
Let the soothing smell of tea infuse your senses with well-being. There is a wide selection of beverages to choose from that are sure to satisfy your discriminating tastes. You can get quality custom tea blends, gourmet chai in various flavors and combinations, fruit tisanes, and a whole lot more.
The Origins of Chai Tea
While many people might only be familiar with chai by virtue of Starbucks, actual masala chai has been around a lot longer than that global institution. The word chai simply means tea, and this verbiage is used in many areas of the world. Masala chai, therefore, can be roughly translated as spiced tea. Chai tea had its origins in India, and it can be understood as a mixture of brewed tea and aromatic herbs and spices.
In the western world, chai most often comes in the form of a chai latte. This indicates that steamed milk has been flavored with concentrated chai rather than the typical espresso that flavors lattes. Alternate names for this type of beverage also include chai tea latte. While this tea today is viewed entirely as a treat on cold, rainy days, the original use was actually more medicinal. To that end, this and other teas were used to treat and prevent various remedies in many places of South Asia.
History of Chai
Tea plants have grown wild in the Assam region since antiquity, but historically, South Asians viewed tea as an herbal medicine rather than a recreational beverage. Some of the chai masala spice mixtures in current use are still derived from Ayurvedic medical texts.
In the 1830s, the British East India Company became concerned about the Chinese monopoly on tea, which constituted most of its trade and supported the enormous consumption of tea in Great Britain, approximately one pound (by weight) per person per year. British colonists had recently noticed the existence of the Assamese tea plants, and now began to cultivate tea plantations locally. Over 90% of the tea consumed in Great Britain was still of Chinese origin in 1870, but by 1900, this percentage had dropped to 10%, largely replaced by tea grown in India (50%) and Ceylon (33%).
However, consumption of tea within India remained low until an aggressive promotional campaign by the (British-owned) Indian Tea Association in the early 20th century, which encouraged factories, mines, and textile mills to provide tea breaks for their workers. It also supported many independent chai wallahs throughout the growing railway system.
The official promotion of chai tea was as served in the English mode, with small added amounts of milk and sugar. The Indian Tea Association initially disapproved of independent vendors’ tendency to add spices and greatly increase the proportions of milk and sugar, thus reducing their usage (and thus purchases) of tea leaves per liquid volume. However, masala chai in its present form has now firmly established itself as a popular beverage, not just outlasting the British Raj but spreading beyond South Asia to the rest of the world.
The New Brew
While coffee has been the predominant morning beverage in American culture for centuries, many people have begun to make the switch over to tea. One of the main advantages to tea is that there are varying caffeine levels between varietals. You can find numerous tea options, all of which have a distinct flavor profile.
Black teas have a strong taste and the highest caffeine content among teas, while greens are more delicate in flavor and have relatively low caffeine levels. There are also many caffeine-free herbal tea on the market that have unique and exotic flavors. Some of the most common are chamomile and lemongrass.
The benefits of Coffee
If you love coffee, here’s some of the latest good news.
• A study of 90,000 Japanese by the National Cancer Center in Tokyo found that people who drank one to four cups of coffee daily had half the liver cancer risk of those who never drank coffee. Researchers aren’t sure why, but they speculate that antioxidants may play a role.
• A study by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health that followed more than 125,000 men and women for more than a decade found that regular coffee drinkers had a significantly lower risk of developing type 2 (or late-onset) diabetes. Studies in Sweden and Finland also concluded that coffee consumption offers protection from type 2 diabetes. Again, researchers aren’t sure why.
• A half-dozen recent international studies showed a positive relationship between drinking caffeinated beverages — including coffee — and lower rates of Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease.
• Other research links coffee consumption with reduced risk of cirrhosis of the liver, colon cancer and asthma.
• A cup or two of coffee can improve endurance in activities such as running, cycling and swimming, according to other research. Coffee has a strong ergogenic effect, meaning it helps people work harder and longer, explains Lawrence Spriet, an exercise physiologist at the University of Guelph who has researched the effects of caffeine on athletic performance for more than a decade. “Even small amounts of caffeine can be quite powerful,” he says.
What’s the ‘B’ in Coffee
BARISTA: The Italian name for the master of the espresso machine.
BITTERNESS: A catchall term used to express displeasure with the taste of coffee. Coffee is naturally bitter, but should not be unpleasantly so. When the natural bitterness of caffeine is removed in decaffeinated coffee, the flavour balance is thrown off, bitterness becomes unpleasant when coffee is under-roasted, highlighting its chlorogenic acid, or when it is overheated on a burner.
BLEND: A mixture of beans from different parts of the world and sometime at different roasts, as opposed to a straight coffee, which is coffee from one region. A roaster usually has secret recipes for signature house blends.
BODY: a tasting tem to describe the weight of coffee on the palate. Paper filtered coffee is typically light in body; coffee brewed through a metal screen, as in a plunger pot and in all espresso, typically has more viscous and at sometime syrupy body. Beans themselves have different degrees of body depending on where they are grown and on their species, Arabica beans have lower body than robusta beans.
BOILER: The small tank in an espresso machine used to heat water and steam milk. Room temperature water for espresso is drawn by pump directly from the reservoir through a copper pipe that travels through the boiler before delivering the hot water to the filter holder.
BOURBON: A hallowed variety of the Arabica species, named for the French island colony off Africa (today Reunion) where it once grew. Bourbon, the basis of the Latin American trade for hundreds of years, is an impractical choice for a farmer, today, because its yield is one-third to one-half that of many newer Arabica varieties. Because connoisseurs prize its flavours and willing to pay more for bourbon trees where they were torn out or abandoned.
BRICK PACK: Coffee beans or, more frequently, ground coffee that has , in effect, been shrink wrapped in thin plastic bags. Brick packs, which save both the price mental for cans and storage space, were developed in Germany the 1950’s but only decades later came into wide use in the United States. They are no better than a can for preserving flavour, because both storage methods require that the coffee first be degassed.
Effects and Consumption Caffeine
What is Caffeine? It is an alkaloid found naturally in such foods as coffee beans, tea, kola nuts, Yerba maté, guarana, and (in small amounts) cacao beans. Caffeine is created in plants as a form of pesticide, to kill of insects feeding on them. In its true form caffeine is a whitish-yellow powder substance, bitter in taste.
Caffeine’s main drug producing effects are: a stimulant that affect the central nervous system, effect the supply of oxygen to cells, the heart rate, and is a mild diuretic. Some studies show that small amounts of caffeine may increase our cognitive functioning and improve our mood.
One common source of caffeine is the coffee plant, the beans from which are used to produce coffee. Caffeine content varies substantially between Arabica and Robusta species and to a lesser degree between varieties of each species. A single serving (6 to 8 fl oz) cup of drip coffee contains around 100 to 125 mg of caffeine. However the world over coffee varies considerably in caffeine content per serving, and range from 75 mg to 250 mg.
Tea is another common source of caffeine in many cultures. In general tea contains half the amount of caffeine per serving than coffee, though certain types of tea, such as Lapsang sou chong smoked teas, and oolong contain less caffeine.
Just how much is a safe amount of caffeine, it is generally agreed that consuming up to 300 mg of caffeine per day is safe. That is the equivalence of drinking three cups of coffee or six cups of tea a day.
Mind Body and Spirit
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In today’s tough economic times we face the daily barrage of the struggling economy, which subconsciously contributes to a negative effect on our psyche. We need to be aware of our health, in mind, body and spirit. One of the ways we can take care of this is to take the time to indulge in one of life’s simple pleasure of sipping a cup of freshly brewed coffee or tea. So if you enjoy your morning or afternoon ritual, then by all means indulge. Just keep it traditional, pure, simple, and pleasurable.
Have you ever gone without your morning cup, how do you feel, when you finally press your lips to the cup and take that longed-for sip…doesn’t it feel wonderful !
Press, One-cup and Drip Coffee Makers
Drip and Presses and One-Cups, oh my! When it comes to coffee makers, java junkies are spoiled for choice, so here are my thoughts on the three types.
French Press ($15 plus)
One Cup Mini ($100 plus)
Drip Programmable ($120 plus)
Greeen with healthy TEA
Why Green Tea?
What makes green tea so special? It has a lot wellness benefits combined with a modest and delightful flavor give brought green tea almost instant fame over the last a couple of years. As a lot more is found out around about the cancer preventive attributes and other health views of the drink, green tea will continue to be amongst the world’s most sensible and healthiest beverages.
Green Tea represses Certain Cancer Risks
There have been research studies across the world that feature clear evidence that green tea inhibits the growing of cancerous cells, in effect cutting your chance of certain types of cancer. Green tea has been proven to diminish the risk of esophageal cancer, colon cancer, prostate cancer and cervical cancer. There are claims that green tea can preclude other forms of cancer as well.



