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Posts Tagged ‘Chinese tea’

The Chinese have a saying: ‘Firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea are the seven necessities to begin a day.’ Though tea is last on the list, we still can see the importance of tea in daily life.
Chinese tea is known to have good healing power. It not only boosts health but also allows longevity. However, we should avoid tea which has been left cool for a long time or overnight. At least three cups of Chinese tea reduces the risk of a stroke by more than a fifth, according to researchers. Chinese tea has several other advantages because it has no side effects, is inexpensive and is easily available.
Oolong tea can reduce the fat in blood. It has been known for a long time that tea can reduce the fat in human body. Or take Pu’er or white tea as an example, it would be ideal for people to maintain a slim body. Apart from the effects above, all the three teas can reduce the possibility of developing cancer. Researchers in the country along with identifying five new genes related to obesity during a five-year study have also found that polyphenols in tea, especially oolong tea, can help you lose weight.
There are several herbal teas that you can buy which claim to be weight loss teas. Stay away from those–while oolong tea or wu long teaor whatever you like to call it will never be harmful, your average weight loss tea can be. Those usually work by being strong diuretics and laxatives, so you’ll drop a lot of water weight quickly, but not only will you have to deal with problems related to dehydration, many of them can mess up your digestive system irrevocably. Cutting out fats and sweets and switching to non-soda drinks (which tea can help you do!), plus getting out for a walk every so often is a much healthier–and effective–method.

You will learn many things about tea as you read this article. One of the things you will learn is that there are several ways to buy Chinese tea. You can buy tea from a tea shop (there are shops all over the country these days); you can purchase tea over
the Internet; and you can buy tea in grocery stores, convenience stores, and even
pharmacies.

That’s not to mention every place you can get tea already brewed for you. Every dining establishment, from a five-star restaurant to a roadside diner and even the ubiquitous coffee shop, serves tea, both hot and cold. When you are buying Chinese tea to brew at home, you can get it in two forms: loose leaf tea or tea bags.

You are probably most familiar with tea bags. This is known as commercial grade tea, and it is made of dust and fannings, the by products of the tea-making process. Dust is the tiniest particles of tea, and fannings are broken tea leaves one grade larger than dust. Here’s the first thing you need to know about tea bags: You get the same health and weight-loss benefits from tea whether you brew it from dried loose tea leaves or from a paper tea bag, as long as it is white, green, oolong, or black tea. The second thing you need to know is that a paper tea bag is meant to be used only once (you will understand why that is important as you read on in this chapter). The flavor you get from a tea bag may not be as rich as the flavor from loose leaf teas, but the only way you will know which you like best is to do a taste test.

Loose leaf tea is just what it sounds like: tea that comes not in a bag, but as
full or cut tea leaves. These are leaves and buds that are harvested and processed
as explained above, and usually sold by weight. Because you are getting
more surface area from loose tea than you get from dust and fannings, you
usually get a richer flavor.

Oolong tea

The Oolong tea protects the heart by helping to lower blood pressure. Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is the most common form of heart disease, and is a major risk factor for heart-related death. A study of Chinese tea drinkers published in 2004 showed that drinking as little as a half-cup of green or oolong tea per day may lower the risk of high blood pressure by nearly 50 percent.

Researchers found that men and women who drank tea on a daily basis for at least a year were much less likely to develop hypertension than those who didn’t, and the more tea they drank, the bigger the benefits. Those who drank at least a half-cup of moderate strength green or oolong tea per day for a year had a 46-percent lower risk of developing hypertension than those who didn’t drink tea. Among those who drank more than two and a half cups of tea per day, the risk of high blood pressure was reduced by 65 percent.The evidence that tea helps prevent cancer is overwhelming.

Since the 1990s, hundreds of studies have been performed showing that Oolong tea can inhibit the formation of tumors, and slow the growth of those already formed. In 1997, researchers at the University of Kansas discovered that the antioxidant power of EGCG is about 100 times greater than vitamin C and twenty-five times greater than vitamin E in protecting DNA from the kind of free radical damage that is thought to increase the risk of cancer. Researchers also found that EGCG is able to signal cancer cells to stop reproducing by promoting apoptosis, a normal cellular process leading to the death of a cell—without harming any healthy cells. One study out of Purdue University in 1998 found that an enzyme called quinol oxidase, or NOX, is necessary for the growth of both normal and cancerous cells. The overactive form of NOX is known as tNOX, for tumor-associated NOX. In test tubes, using purified NOX protein solutions, researchers found that low doses of EGCG—such as those that could be consumed by drinking several cups of tea a day—were capable of inhibiting the activity of the tNOX cells but did not inhibit the NOX activity of healthy cells.

The Chinese tea lore is several hundred years and even thousands of years earlier than that of Japan. It can be said that the Chinese tea lore places an emphasis on spirit and makes light of form. It also has different representations at different historical stages. Teas are also different but all embody the tea spirit of “clearness, respect, joy and truthfulness”.

Drinking tea – Tea is taken as a beverage to quench thirst.

Tasting tea – Emphasis is placed on the color, fragrance and flavor of tea, water quality and tea set. When taking tea, the taster should also be able to savor tea carefully.

Tea art – Attention is paid to environment, atmosphere, music, infusing techniques and interpersonal relationships.

The highest ambit—— tea lore – Philosophy, ethics and morality are blended into tea activity. People cultivate their morality and mind and savor the life through tasting tea, thereby attaining enjoyment of spirit.

Clearness – It is namely cleanness, incorruptness, quietness and loneliness. The essense of tea art not only seeks the cleanness of the appearance of things, but also pursues the loneliness, tranquility, incorruptness and shame awareness of the mind. In a still ambit, only through drinking clear and pure tea soup can one appreciate the profoundness of drinking tea.

respect – Respect is the root of everything on earth and the way of having no enemies. People should show respect for others and be cautious themselves.

Joy – The meaning of harmony lies in form and method and that of joy is in spirit and affection. Sipping bitterness and swallowing sweetness when drinking tea can enlighten the spice of life and cultivate a broad mind and a far sight so that the disputes between others and self disappear. The spirit of joy lies in that people is not pretentious and haughty, dwell in mildness and nurture courteous conduct.

Truthfulness – It is namely truth and genuine knowledge. The supreme good is the whole formed by combination of truth and genunine knowledge. The ambit of supreme good is to retain nature, remove material desire without being tempted by advantages and disadvantages, study the physical world to gain knowledge and continually seek after improvements. In another word, people should use scientific methods to seek the complete sincerity of everything. The essence of drinking tea lies in enlightening capacity and conscience so that everyone can live a simple life to express their ambition and handle matters thriftily and virtuously in daily life, thus attaining the ambit of truth, good and beauty.

Oolong Tea

Also called blue tea, it is an unfermentated tea. It is a tea category with unique and distinctive characteristics among the several tea categories in our country. The Wulong tea, which blends the production of green tea and black tea together, has a quality between green tea and black tea. It not only has the thick and fresh flavor of black tea, but also has the pleasant fragrance of green tea. It enjoys a good reputation as green leaves with red edge. The pharmacological effects of the Oolong tea are profoundly manifested in decomposing fat, reducing weight and keeping fit, etc. It is regarded as beauty tea and fitness tea in Japan.