Types

There are many different types of tea that you can choose from, with the basic categories being white tea, green matcha tea, black tea, green tea, and oolong tea. There are some teas which are flavored or scented with oils or flower petals during the processing stages, and this gives these teas a very strong, distinctive flavor and aroma.

Loose Leaf Tea

There are the regular, more commonly purchased teas that you get in the teabags, and then there is loose leaf tea. Basically loose leaf tea is just what it sounds like, as it is tea that is loose and not in a bag or other sort of satchel or container. There are both similarities and differences with the loose leaf tea compared to its counterpart, as well as advantages and disadvantages.

The main difference between loose leaf tea and bagged tea is the size of the leaves. This is important because tea leaves contain certain chemicals and essential oils which are the basis for the flavor of the tea, and when these leaves are broken up the oils can end up evaporating and this results in a less tasteful tea.

Choices

You have many choices when it comes to the loose leaf tea, and green teas are by far the most popular, namely due to all the health benefits that they offer the drinker. A few of the green teas that are available are: Sencha, Organic Green Tea, Jasmine Pearls, Vanilla Mint, Vanilla Jasmine, Moroccan Mint, and Snow Sprout.

Each different tea has its own distinctive aromatic and flavor qualities, and the best idea is to try a few out until you find one that you really love. Either way, whether you choose a loose leaf or bagged tea, you are still going to be reaping the health benefits that are offered by the beverage, especially if you opt for green or black tea.

You can typically find a variety of teas at your local health foods store or you can simply head down to the local supermarket where you should be able to find a decent selection as well.

How Wrong I Was

Lipton Tea is a British company, founded by Thomas Lipton, who was a Scotsman.  He is one of a number of Scottish innovators that lead to the choosing of Star Trek’s miracle-working engineer to be Scottish (and nicknamed “Scotty”, to boot).  Sir Lipton lived in America from 1865 – 1870 and learned a lot about the American brand of in your face outrageous advertising.

The first Lipton tea shop opened in 1870 in Glasgow, Scotland.  At first, this tea shop was a fully fledged grocery, with the first successful advertising campaign being bacon, but eventually Lipton specialized in tea.  This decision was spurred on by Lipton managing to snap up five bankrupt tea plantations in Ceylon.  That’s a lotta tea…no wait, that’s another tea company…

ANYWAY…

Sir Lipton came up with the manes “brisk tea” and “orange pekoe”.  There actually is no specific tea blend called orange pekoe or brisk, but since the public bought so much Lipton tea, that’s what they started to ask for.  Other brands of tea in America have tea listed as “orange pekoe” just to let the public know what flavor their tea is similar to.

Lipton Tea spread all over the world and did an incredible business in America.  Sir Lipton often sailed back and forth to America in ships as a great publicity stunt.  He died filthy rich.  But Lipton tea did not stop with Sir Lipton’s passing.  In 1952, they patented a four sided teabag.  Tea bags had been available since 1903, but were rare.  With a convenient and affordable tea bag, bagged tea became the norm.

Lipton Tea is now owned by mega-conglomerate Unilever (which also owns Dove hair and skin care products, Close Up toothpaste and Vaseline, among others) but still remains one of the largest tea sellers in the world.  Their tea line includes herbal teas, green matcha tea, decaffeinated and green teas, as well as the classic “Orange Pekoe”.

But, Whatever It Is

Unlike green matcha tea, Kombucha tea has been popular for donkey’s years in the Eastern part of the world, but has become well known as a health tonic in the Western World.  However, none of the health claims have been proven by clinical scientific tests, although many people swear it helped them recover from such ailments as asthma, high blood pressure, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, eczema, psoriasis and even migraines.  Kombucha tea definitely has B vitamins, which the body needs for various functions.

How To Make It

It takes five or six days to make kombucha tea, on average.  Some tea needs two weeks in order to brew to the proper flavor.   It’s not just “pop in mug and add hot water”, no.  You have to get a kombucha culture and feed it and then let it mature and then strain it and then….well, you get the idea.  This is perhaps the main reason this tea really hasn’t sold like hotcakes in the West.  Most Westerners are just too busy to go through the bother of making it.  You need a minor degree in chemistry to make this stuff.  Of course, the more you practice, the easier it gets.

Warnings

There are many more health warnings attached to kombucha tea than to most other kinds of herbal teas (yes – technically, this is classified as an herbal tea, although no herbs are actually in it).  People with immune deficiency disorders should stay far away from this tea.  If you are not careful in the culture growing, you could possibly be making anthrax tea instead of kombucha tea.

Allergic reactions happen, and tend to be severe when they occur.  These signs include vomiting, jaundice, nausea and, as the Mayo Clinic website reports “one suspected death”.  You cannot make kombucha tea in a ceramic tea pot or ceramic mug, as chemicals in the tea create an adverse reaction in the ceramic glaze, which gives you lead poisoning.

An American Original

In the late 1800’s, iced tea recipes began appearing in American cookbooks.  However, none of those cookbooks went national or were widely distributed.  Iced tea’s coming out party was at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, where it was a hit.  It has just been growing in popularity ever since, especially now that refrigeration has improved.  Centuries ago, having ice cubes in the house during summer was unthought of.  It is especially popular as a summertime drink.

Iced tea never caught on in other countries, although it can be found if you look hard enough.  The English and Irish raise their children on hot tea, so the taste of watered down cold tea is a bit of a shock.  America and some parts of South America are really the only countries that have actively embraced this distinctive tea into their daily lives.

Cold Vs Hot Tea

To make iced tea, you make a pot of regular tea, or even green matcha tea, add a sweetener, mix it in a pitcher and fill with cold water.  The usual ratio of tea to cold water is about one to three.  When drinking, don’t expect the full flavor of cooled off hot tea.  Iced tea basically tastes like tea-favored water – however, it’s incredibly refreshing.  Lots of iced tea queens like my Mom like to add fresh slices of lemon or lime in their tea.  Some like to add a sprig or fresh mint as well.  This mix is usually served over a generous glass full of ice.  Never add milk!

There has been on the market instant iced tea powders, but they are far inferior in taste quality to the real thing.  Also, you have no control over the amount of sweetener, artificial flavorings or preservatives added to the mix.  There are sugar-free versions, and they are truly frightening.  If you love Kool-Aid, however, you will most likely enjoy instant tea mixes.  A real iced tea queen never drinks instant, but always cooled off real tea mixed with water.  And don’t try fooling them – they know.

So Many Choices

Get your tea making equipment set up before you bring in the herbs.  It needn’t be fancy or expensive.  You can boil it in a regular saucepan and drain the mixture with a sieve before serving (unless you like picking leaves out of your teeth).  There are also tea balls and tea strainers made for the purpose of putting your material in and out of a tea pot or individual cup.

One of the best ways of making herbal tea for one or two cups is with a cafetire, usually sold to make coffee. It’s sometimes sold under the more descriptive name of “coffee plunger”.  You put the herbs, chopped fruit, spices or whatever into the glass beaker; let it steep in boiling hot water for ten minutes and then put the plunger apparatus on top of the beaker and push down.  This traps all of the solid matter, leaving your tea chunky-free and ready to sip.  Use one cupped handful of fresh, roughly chopped herbs or a half a teaspoon of dried herbs for each cup of tea you are making. Mixing it with some green matcha tea is a great idea too.

Making herbal teas is like any other recipe.  You can follow the recipe to the letter, or use it a guideline to improvise to suit your own tastes.  Some herbs like mint or lemon balm can use some sweetener, while some herbs like rosemary work better with lemon juice added instead of sugar.  Some herbs are quite bitter and, well, taste like dirt (such as St. John’s Wort) so they heed quite a bit of sweetener.

Soon you can mix herbs, spices and fruits to see what flavor combinations you can come up with.  As your taste buds get used to herbal teas, you might find that you need to cut back on the sweetener.  This writer can’t tolerate any sweetener in her nettle tea, for example, although I did when I started to drink it.  Also note your body’s reactions to the herbal teas for future reference.  Ginger tea tends to heat up the body very quickly – perfect after having to trudge through winter rains.

What it is

Green tea extract is a product that has been around for centuries and been used to treat health conditions for almost as long, namely by the Chinese. It was most commonly used at first to treat headaches, poor digestion, and body aches and pains, but now is used for a variety of other matters as well.

Green tea extract is very rich in bioflavonoids, which are most commonly known for their antioxidant activity. There are both health promoting effects and therapeutic effects offered by bioflavonoids, including everything from better eyesight, improved cardiovascular health and increased capillary strength to an improved structure of connective tissues, better appearance of skin and a stronger immune system.

It is the EGCG in green matcha tea extract in particular which helps to protect the body against digestive and respiratory infections as well as to help block the actions of carcinogens which are what promote cancer.

It is also beneficial as a fat burner and these days it is quite commonly used for in weight loss regimes. Green tea extract works well for weight loss because it works without increasing the heart rate, as is the case with most other types of fat burners. Not only that but also by using green tea dieters get help with losing weight but without the jitters and other unwelcome side effects that are so often experienced.

Green tea leaf is antibacterial, meaning that it will help you to lower your cholesterol, reduce inflammation in the body and lower blood pressure, and some new research even has suggested that green tea is able to help prevent liver transplant failure in patients.

There are literally too many benefits of green tea extract to list, and so if you have not already begun to include it as a major part of your diet, then you should definitely do so as soon as possible. There are no negative symptoms or side effects that will result once you do, and so you can just look forward to all the benefits that you will be receiving. You can speak to your doctor or do more research on your own for more information on this.

What Is It?

Also called pearl tea, bubble tea is a special hot frothy drink with chewy “pearls” or tapioca-like balls in it.  The original was hot Taiwanese black tea, condensed milk, honey and these tapioca balls.  Although they do look like bubbles, the name came from the layer of bubbly froth produced on the top.  This is a sweet, rich drink – a dessert in itself.  Many variations have come out since, using different kinds of teas, spices, flavorings and different “pearls”.

The tiny pearls average about 6 mm in diameter and are usually made of tapioca starch, but also now are made of egg pudding, aloe pieces, coconut jelly, coffee jelly, lychee jelly or konjac jelly.  There is also a popular variant of the tapioca starch being mixed with green tea, which apparently gives the pearls a green color and chewier texture.  Tapioca is actually from South American cassava plant.  When cassava was introduced to the Orient in the 1800’s, it was a big hit.  You can find cassava in almost any store and outdoor market in the Orient from Turkey to Taipei.

The Drink Is Half The Fun

Bubble tea is not real bubble tea unless it is served properly.  They need to be served in papper cups with oversized plastic dome lids and really oversized plastic straws so you can suck up the pearls at the cups bottom.  Many people in the United States have the same feeling about Slurpees.  You can only truly indulge in the Slurpee experience by use of a plastic spoon-straw.

Bubble tea has spawned all kinds of bubble drink variations – bubble coffee, bubble fruit juices and bubble slushies.  You don’t necessarily need tea anymore to have a bubble drink.  Like lattés and cappuccinos, you do need machinery to help in the making of bubble tea.  You need a cocktail shaker or, preferably, a good blender.  Where you get the straws is anyone’s guess.  It takes a couple of hours to bake the tapioca dough

There certainly is a lot of green tea about nowadays.  There are green tea bags, green iced tea, green tea cakes, green matcha tea green tea health supplements and a lot of words ending in exclamation points about the benefits of green tea.  Green tea is not the fountain of youth, but it is a healthy and refreshing beverage alternative.  It might taste peculiar at first, but you soon get used to the taste.

Low In Caffeine

This is one of the major health benefits of green tea.  Unless you are specifically buying decaffeinated green tea bags or iced tea, green tea does contain very small amounts of caffeine.  However, it contains less than half of a cup of black tea does.  Caffeine is becoming more and more of a health problem in modern times.  Back even in the 1970’s, it was not thought to be addictive or to alter moods.  Now, however, caffeine is addictive (only in that you get withdrawal cravings or even a migraine if you don’t have it regularly) and disturbs our sleep patterns.

The health benefits of green tea means you can have a great beverage, but not have to load up on so much caffeine to get through the day to the point where you are still zooming all night.  A 2007 medical study from England suggested that by getting less than seven hours of sleep out of 24, we are more of a chance of lower body immunity and thus dying earlier than we have to.

Keeps The Blood Flowing

Studies suggest that another of the major health benefits of green tea is that it helps keep your blood flowing at just the right rate – not too fast and not too slow.  It has also been shown to help reduce blood pressure and lower cholesterol and for overall circulatory system health.  Arthritis can also greatly affect the circulatory system, leaving limbs numb or tingly.  It has been suggested that another of the health benefits of green tea is that it helps lower the severity of arthritis by keeping your blood moving.

Because of this affect, it not recommended that anyone on blood thinners drink a lot of green tea.  This might make your blood too thin and putting you in danger of loosing too much blood with just a minor injury.

Rich In Antioxidants

One of the long term benefits of drinking green tea is that you are taking in a great source of antioxidants.  These are little chemicals that help the body recognize and fight cancer.  So far, scientists don’t exactly know how antioxidants help the body only that they definitely do.

Trend Setter

AriZona tea was the first national iced tea brand to incorporate such a distinctive visual design.  They also were and still are an American  owned and based company – kinda odd for a tea company, which is mostly European owned, as Europe did corner the tea trade a couple of hundred years ago.  Tea then fell out of favor around Revolutionary times because it was taxed so heavily.  Drinking tea then became synonymous with supporting the British Crown.

But tea is back, stronger than ever in multitudes of flavors and blends.  Green tea was not popular in the Western World until just a couple of decades ago – until then, the Asians had kept the green tea for themselves.  Iced tea is credited as an American invention, first recorded in 1904 World’s Fair.  AriZona tea is made from all kinds of tea blends.  You can chose herbal tea, white tea, green tea or black tea (all iced and pre-sweetened, of course).  AriZona recently branched out into chips and salsa, as well as iced coffee, infused spring water and fruit drinks.  But they are mainly known for their iced tea.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then many other beverage companies can’t stop flattering AriZona tea.  Ready to drink iced tea was a tiny market.  Iced tea was considered too easy to make for someone to buy ready made.  But when you are hot and traveling and can’t get to a kettle, a glass of iced tea really pops to mind.  Iced tea makes a more thirst quenching and less sugary alternative to the usual carbonated soft drinks.  AriZona tea is the leaders in ready-to-drink iced teas, despite being such a young product (it hit the markets in 1992 in New York, then went nationwide a year later).

And AriZona tea has won many awards for their innovative packaging and design, including the industry’s leading award, the MOBIUS, in 1996 – 1999

When teas leaves are picked, the processing to dry the leaves takes place within a day or two of harvesting. This prevents the natural fermenting of the leaves that turns then dark and preserves many of the catechins that occur naturally in teas. With the potential health benefits of the antioxidant more prevalent in green tea it is believed its use to reduce free radicals in the blood stream can help prevent many health issues as well as help stop the growth of many others.

In addition to green tea being sold in crushed and whole leaf form for brewing in hot water, it is also being sold in ready-mixed form for immediate consumption either to be heated or consumed cold. It is currently one of the fastest growing products in terms of sales with American retailers.

Not All Studies Draw Positive Conclusions

Studies with catechins infused with green tea have shown a reduction in bad cholesterol as well as an increase in good cholesterol following a 12-week study period. This led researchers in Nashville, Tennessee to conclude that green tea used in conjunction with other appropriate dietary methods could be a benefit in reducing cholesterol. Additionally, it was to be useful when treating those with severe obesity.

Some claims by manufacturers of green tea for health issues have been denied by the Food and Drug Administration, while similar claims for the benefits of reducing the potential for cardiovascular disease have been allowed, provided clarification of the studies limitations are included in any advertising for the product as a health benefit.

Several foreign countries, especially Japan where green tea has been used for its health properties, offer unabashed claims about the many benefits of green tea when it is used as part of a specific diet. Claims include help for heart disease and cancer as well as for providing more energy. Many health conscious individuals consider green tea as one of the most all-around benefits found in a single product.