Barley Tea/Mugicha Tea

A colleague of mine just bought some barley tea for the whole office from Japan.

Before putting the barley tea bag into the hot water, I can smell from the bag already
Smell so good!!!!

Just looking it up for Barley tea, it actually really good for the body
from the perspective of Chinese medicine

It is good for your stomach, especially for those don’t have good stomach, (i.e. suffer from stomache)
Good for people who constipate, because barley tea can help for digesting the carbonhydrate food, this tea is good for your digestive system

This tea also only good for mothers who just finish breast feeding, (Caution: not for those who are breast feeding, “finish” I mean totally finished, no more breast feeding to your baby)

Wow~ it is just a tea, but I can still how helpful it can be.

   

Blackcurrant tea

 

The newest tea that I try is the Blackcurrant tea from Stash herbal samplers
(Yes, still the herbal tea, you can still how long does it take me to finish and try all the samplers in that box)

I think after trying so many teas that have berries flavor (except strawberry and blueberry)
I don’t think I am really into the berry types tea now
To me
is too sour
(I don’t know probably just me coz my friend said it is sweet enough…)

Anyway
I just found that it is good to have blackcurrant though
as it does good to health
may be I should try the tea again or just simply eat blackcurrant

Blackcurrant is famous containing high level of Vitamins C
Vitamins C cannot be produced by the body
Vitamins C is important to skin, teeth, ligaments, bones, tendons and cartilage…

Blackcurrant Foundation: http://www.blackcurrantfoundation.co.uk/info.aspx?Id=223
Stash Blackcurrant Tea: http://shopstashtea.com/030048.html

4 cups of tea per day

I just read something online
I guess it is better to know it late than not knowing it at all

It is from the UK Tea Council (I didn’t know that Tea can have council, by the way we have one in Canada as well)

 It says that 4 cups of tea will give you a daily fluid intake
the antioxidant tea contains can be beneficial for heart health
small amount of caffeine tea can help concetration

Mind you that tea is health when no sugar and milk is added 

Also for personal comment
how come everything starts talking about portions
how many portions of fruit, veg, meat, grain…etcetc we need to take everyday
do men really not know how to eat good and healthy and we need all these experts or scientific researches to tell us?

 http://www.tea.co.uk/

Lemon Tea – Lipton

I am having a cold… and feeling so sick

Gotta stay home and browing the internet to kill time and “rest”

All I can have and want to have is lemon tea or lemon with honey

Becoz it gives a lot of Vitamin C
There is a special chemical reaction when the lemon in a hot drink

It will produce natural steroid which can cure cold

The tea that mix good with lemon is from Lipton…
Check this website out, it is really good!! Feel like I am in the field of tea

I love it

http://www.lipton.com/

,

Tea for women – Rose bud tea

Always wanna to try rose bud tea

it got vitamin C therefore:

- Good for skin

- Help relaxing

and

- Cure cold/flu

- Period pain

- strengthen functions of the heart and stomach

- lose fat

A tea that for women~!

Herb/Herbal Tea 1

So, you may heard about Black tea, green tea, oolong tea…..etcetc, these different types of tea.
But Herb Tea may be you seldomly hear about it, unless you are Chinese or you know about Chinese medicine or unless you are tea lover.
The Herb Tea that I am talking about is the Chinese Herb Tea.

Picture of Herbal Tea shop

Herbal Tea actually orginiated from Canton (Guangdong) in China.
It has a history of 200 years. Herbal tea as been listed as National Intangible Cultural Heritage just recently.
Nowadays you either can get it from a Chinese Medicine shop or from the Herbal Tea shop.
This kind of tea are to help remove tonics in your body, to cleanse your body and enhance vitality.
Each of them has its own function and benefits to your body, for example, help you to recover from flu , dehydration, remove internal heat…etcetc.

Herbal Tea not only good for you body, they actually sometimes served as a cold drink to hot drink when you are enjoying having Hot Pot or BBQ.
So that you won’t have a sore throat the next day. I can tell you that these tea really helps from a personally experience, which I could still give a presentation next day without losing my voice from Hot Pot or BBQ!!!

Herbal Tea will become more popular after the Olympics 2008 @ Bejing as they are going to promote more and more to other people.
Another shocking news that I just read, just released from the press last year that Herbal Tea will become the top selling drink in the world, it beats Cokecola and Starbucks in 2010. Herbal Tea will be sold 60 million tons by 2010.

To know more about Herbal Tea (Chinese), check this website out:
http://library.thinkquest.org/06aug/01423/

Green tea & Weight loss

Ok, so this month (January) for the US is the National Hot Tea Month,
becoz they did a study show that tea helped weight loss.

Hm…

Some people even suggested that, after having a meal, drink a cup of tea may increase your metabolic rate, which I guess it is true.

But don’t forget in previous entry, it actually didn’t do you good, becoz tea could reduce the absorption of iron & protein from the food that you just have. Totally not good for digestion.

Also, the FDA still hasn’t release or have any report on the number of dose of green tea we could have.
Therefore, there is still a potential risk if drinking too much green tea

Good things about green tea:

- preventing/treating cancer
- stop certain neurodegenerative disease; Alzhemier
- Prevent degradation of cell membrances, i.e free radical
- treat multiple sclerosis, arthristis
- Fight viral infection

So I guess, even though there are studies prove certain things and other studies against those studies…we should never over eating/drinking certain amount of stuff, i.e. orange juice is good for you, but if you drink too much, it is going to be harmful to your body.so…

Tea & Milk

Well, while everybody think that tea is good for you,if without milk
Tea can help prevent cancer and the catechins in the tea will protect you against heart disease
The recent study released this month said that the milk cancel out the benefit of the tea

However, if you add milk into the tea, the protein, caseins in the milk will cancel the catechins in the tea.

Sad….that means now I have to drink English Breakfast tea without milk…how can I eliminate this habit…
they said that real tea drinkers do not add milk…
and the British don’t really add milk into the tea…
Hm..I remembered that adding milk into the tea is what I learned when I lived in UK.

who shouldn’t drink tea … part 2

picture from flickr user – bugandfishes

6. People who have constipation
                       - Catechu would  have a function of astriction or 
                         weaken the movement of your intestine or digestive system,
                        –  increase chances of constipation
7. People who are breast feeding 
                   - may cause the baby to have intestinal spasm and problems in sleeping
8. People who have heart disease – becoz of caffeine
9. Pregnant women

Recent study showed (it was on the NEWS Jan 21,08 that high chances of miscarriage for pregnant women who drink too much caffeine)

10. People who are drunk
                  – alcohol already affect the heart rate, therefore, with caffeine from the tea,
                     it causes  heart rate go faster

So there are still a lot of things to think when drinking tea…

I guess we should be caution of what we put into our mouths, that’s what all the mums always said, mums are always right… 

Who shouldn’t drink tea…Part 1

picture from flickr user – bugandfishes

People who shouldn’t drink tea:

1. People lack of iron
            – Tannic from tea affect the aborption of iron already,
               therefore, it cause more problem to people who are anemia

2. Nervous breakdown/ neurashthenia
              – Caffeine already makes people hyper and increase metabolic rate
                       –> leads problem in sleeping

3. People who have fastric (stomach) ulcer
             - Caffeine would gastric juices and cause more problem in recovery

4.People who have a calculus or stone
               – oxalic acid would increase the number of calculus or stone
5. Problems with liver
               – Caffeine break down in the liver, therefore,
              if you have problems with the liver, it just add more burden and damage to your liver

 

Soooo many things need to concern when drinking tea!!!

10 things to avoid

Know how to drink and enjoy a cup of tea….

1. Don’t drink tea with empty stomach
    - it hurts the organs
2.  Don’t drink it when it is super duper hot
   - if you drink it for a long time, it damages the organs.  - Studies show that people who frequently drink the tea that has a temperature of 62 Celus have problems with stomach.
   Best temperature is 56 Celus or below
   - hurt your the throat, stomach and esophagus
3.  Don’t drink tea after having alcohol
   - Ethanol/Alcohol (From your alcohol drink) and theophylline (from the tea leaves) will be absorbed by the kidney constantly and make your kidney work harder or cause harm to the kidney
4.  Don’t drink strong tea
   - Too much Caffeine that could cause headache and insomnia
5.  Don’t steep the tea for a long time
   - It will become bitter and lose its flavour and leave it for too long, it may contaminated by the enviornment and cause bacteria to develop
6.  A tea bag or tea can only brew for 3-4 cups of tea
   - You can get 50% of flavor or tea from the 1st cup of tea you brew
   30% for the 2nd cup
   10% for the 3rd cup
   1-3% for the 4th cup of teaIf you continue to brew it for the next cup of tea, all you will get is the harmful substance.
7.  Don’t drink tea before meal/eating
   - It lower your appetite.
8.  Don’t drink tea straight away after having meal/eating
   - Best time to have a cup of tea – one hour after the meal because tea contain tannic acid and make it harder to digest the protein and iron we have from food.
9.  Don’t mix or dirnk with medicine
   - Affect the absorption and th effectiveness of medicine
10.  Don’t drink the tea that left over for a long time
    - If the tea left it for too long and not drinking it, the vitamins will be lost, and the protein and glucose inside the tea would develop as bacteria.