Loose-leaf Green Tea

Drinking quality loose-leaf green tea can do wonders for your health, but the used up leaves don’t have to go to waste. Before they get tossed into the compost with the coffee grinds, take a moment for yourself and lay the damp leaves over your eye lids.

Middle-aged Chinese women often use this kind of remedy for a healthier, more youthful look around their eyes and hands. It’s not uncommon to see women aged 50+ to pour their Morning Tea (served at traditional brunch restaurants in Southern China) over their hands too!

Ginger Tea

Flu season is here and virtually everyone crosses paths with someone who is sick during December-February. Beyond getting a flu shot, its a good idea to use natural flu fighters that are good for pumelling sickness in winter. Green tea and oranges are always a safe bet when you are feeling under the weather, but having a cup of natural ginger root tea can be especially helpful when fighting the flu.

Chinese and Western doctors both suggest their patients to cut up real ginger and boil it like tea. It can be bitter, so add some sugar to it if you’d like.

Don’t have ginger root? Most supermarkets carry it in their produce section. You can also put it in the freezer to keep it fresh throughout the winter.

Loose leaf Green Tea

Western science has discovered that the health benefits of tea greatly outweigh the benefits of coffee. But if you like coffee, keep drinking it. But challenge yourself today by drinking 1 cup of tea for every cup of coffee. That way you are not depriving yourself of the cancer-fighting polyphenol antioxidants in tea, especially green tea.

In fact, Green tea was used for medical purposes in ancient China and is now ubiquitous across Asia. If you follow just one Asian secret it should be this one!

Green Tea To-Go

All of my guests who have visited China notice the basics: delicious food, hospital people, beautiful landscapes, questionable hygiene, and ancient customs. One aspect of Chinese culture I often get asked about is tea culture. One specific part of the tea culture has been left untouched on AL.ME for years: Green Tea To-Go! So today I finally weigh in on an ancient custom that has been born through thousands of years of medical practice and remains a cornerstone in modern Chinese culture.

“Green Tea To-Go” is what I call the green tea containers which are ubiquitous among everyday Chinese (usually men). Bus drivers, office workers, teachers, and government officials can be seen carrying this simple hot beverage container with a strainer all day long. With all the benefits of (green) tea, it isn’t hard to grasp why they are so tea-crazy.  It has also become more obvious why they are so excited all the time. (Psst, they are high on green tea!)

For some, it is an addiction. They drink it at every breakfast, with lunch, and in the afternoon; They top off the bottle with steaming hot water every chance they get. It’s not hard to understand why… hot water is available everywhere, 24/7. You can top it off at your office, in the bus station, in the markets, and even in the police station! My recent visit to a PSB in Guangzhou proved that you can keep getting your fix practically anywhere! And when you’re surrounded by it, you’ll have difficulty shaking the habit. (i.e.:Dunkin’ Donuts lovers in much of the USA know what I’m talking about…)

Throughout my years in China I have also chosen to replace most of my coffee drinking with tea. I’m a product of my environment, for better or worse. Green Tea To-Go probably does more good than harm and should be considered as a reasonable way to cut-back on other drinking habits that we might develop over time.

Get some loose tea and a portable bottle, and then try it! Tell me how it goes

A popular request I get is related to the medicinal use of tea. I’m finally writing this article after discussing this topic with various Chinese friends who have nearly 20 years of experience in the tea business. After discussions with them and other trusted tea connoisseurs I’m ready to post on this topic. I suggest reading a previous post about understanding the world of tea in order to get more familiar with the major varieties of tea.

You’ll find that two major substances in tea do most of the leg work: epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) and polyphenol. Remember: I’m not a doctor and the following is a collection of information told by friends, which I’ve cross-referenced with scientific studies.

Dieting: Pu’er Tea is known as the most effective of the major tea varieties for metabolizing fat, which is why it is often a major part of diet tea concoctions sold commercially. It isn’t a silver bullet to weight loss, but should be included as a supplement to your weight loss or dieting regimen. Pu’er Tea also has great benefits to combat heart disease, see below. Also see my overview and disambiguation of major teas here.

Cleansing and Digestion:  From a Chinese perspective, “cleansing” means the process of pulling oil from your intestines. It doesn’t mean you should have diarrhea, but a person eating an oily-food diet will have better cleansing results. The precursor to cleansing is actually an improvement in digestion. Hopefully this serves to clarify what “cleansing teas” on the market should actually do.

Cancer and Degenerative Diseases: The most useful time to consume tea for the purpose of combating cancer is before the cancer in question has arrived. Tea, Green Tea in particular, is more effective with digestive and urinary tract cancers, however, there is a long list of other cancers that have been inhibited with animal testing, including:”lung, forestomach, esophagus, duodenum, pancreas, liver, breast, colon, and skin cancers”[*]

The immune system gets a boost from what The Green Tea Book articulates as the “secret ingredient”of Green tea, which is its high content of polyphenol (a phytonutrient). For people who crave details, the reason polyphenols are effective combatants to potential cancers is due to their high amounts of antioxidants. Basically, antioxidants prevent free radicals from flipping out all over the body and kicking off chain-reaction scavenging for reactive cells.[*] (In a nut shell free radicals damage cells, which can cause a range of problems from aging to cancer.)

A 2007 study done in China shows that Alzheimers and Parkinson‘s patients could have benefits from the polyphenol of Green Tea, because it  “may protect neurons against the detrimental effects of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and nitric oxide (NO)…” Basically, with enough pure green tea extract (EGCG), it could inhibit the death of neurons which causes these degeneration, leading to Alzheimers and Parkinson’s.

The following are specific studies that I’ve grouped here and linked to their respective sources.

Heart Disease: There is a “preventative effect…on coronary heart disease, high blood cholesterol , and high blood pressure…” according to a 2000 study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Skin Damage: Topical applications of green tea extracts (EGCG) have protective effects on UVA- and UVB-induced skin damage (photoaging and carcinogenesis) [*]

Lung Cancer: “Among smokers, those who did not drink green tea at all were more than 12 times as likely to develop lung cancer than those who drank at least a cup a day.” (Read more in this BBC review of the study) Of course, quitting smoking makes more sense…

Stress: A study released in 2010 by University College London shows that black tea consumption after a stressful event can reduce levels of the stress hormone “cortisol”. [*]

Stroke: In 2009, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) conducted research which found that “drinking three or more cups of tea per day can reduce the risk of suffering a stroke by as much as 21 per cent.” [*]