i just wanted to write a little story about tea. i am a tea drinker, and up until last weekend, i really didn't know a whole heck of a lot about the stuff :-). Well, we were in chinatown and stopped by this tea shop called vital tea leaf http://www.vitaltleaf.com. the owner was there and had his son "take care of us". he took us on an amazing journey through the history of tea, it has been in his family for 100s of years. the chinese believe that tea has serious impact on your health and that without it they would not be able to eat all of that greasy, animal lard filled food that is the main stay for their society. :-)

this is what i learned, could be a bunch of baloney, but i doubt it.

first things first, preparing it. you should always use loose leaf teas, bag teas are over processed and crushed and that removes all of the polyphenols in the tea that contain the health benefits (antioxidants, etc.). when you seep your tea, you should only seep it for 15 - 60 seconds, if you let it go longer than that, it loses the polyphenols and is filled with tannins and caffeine, which makes the tea bad for you. you should never pour boiling water over your tea, boil the water, let it set for 3 minutes, then pour it on your tea. Also, you can use the same 1 tsp of tea for 6-8 cups of tea in an 8 hour period. so what right? what can tea do for you?

we tasted lychee black tea, good for "degreasing" when you are eating heavy foods, it breaks down the fat. milk oolong, irrigated with milk the last 3 months of its growing time, sweet and delicious. angel green tea, hand-picked young, and air-dried, good for high cholesterol, and high blood pressure. blue monkey people with ginseng for energy. jasmine pearl tea for eyesight, memory and filled with antioxidants. puhrar tea, a black tea used for weight loss. champagne oolong a mix of red and white teas, probably good for you too, can't remember why, hee hee. monkey picked green tea which is grown in the high mountains of china, they used to use trained monkeys to pick the tea because it was too high and the terrain was too difficult to navigate without damaging the tea. lychee fruit and black tea which was a sweet desert tea. last but not least wild roses from syberia, the tea was actually rosebuds, drinking flowers is my favorite.

we also learned that oolong means "mistake" in chinese and it is used in a tea name whenever they mix something, and it is not in its pure state. beautiful mistake if you ask me.

last, you don't even need a fancy tool to use loose leaf tea, put a tsp in one cup, rinse it with hot water to remove some of the tannins and caffine, pour out the water, fill your cup, seep for 15-60 seconds, pour it into a new cup using a little strainer or a dish to hold the leaves in. cover them and reuse them as desired. if it is good tea the leaves are big enough that you might only get one or two in your cup.

i love tea.