Tea Facts and Quotations

• If your tea is cloudy, it could be due to hard water. Calcium and magnesium in hard water react with the theoflavins and theorubigens in black tea forming an insoluble precipitate that is most visible when the tea cools. However, not all clouding is due to hard water. Some teas have a tendency to "cream down" (as it is called) more than others. Assam teas from India are well-known for this trait. To see if your tea is cloudy due to hard water or not, brew a cup with distilled water and compare to your regular water.
• Speaking of water, don't ever underestimate the value of good quality water for tea brewing. I used to live in an area with very hard water and was completely used to it, so I never gave it any thought. But at work, I made tea with bottled spring water. After a while, I could really tell the difference. I found myself throwing out tea that I made at home thinking that the tea had gone stale. Then I got the same bottled water at home and realized that was the problem! Amazing!
• Handles were added to teacups in the mid 1750's by the English to prevent ladies from burning their fingers. Prior to that, the English used the traditional style of Chinese cups without handles.
• "Wouldn't it be dreadful to live in a country where they didn't have tea?" -- Noel Coward

Tea and Health News

Green Tea and Exercise: A recent study involving mice running on a treadmill (conjures up some funny images, doesn't it??) showed that those mice fed green tea extract had improved endurance. Compared to control mice who exercised but received no green tea extract, mice fed green tea extract were able to run 30% longer before reaching exhaustion. They also showed higher muscle glycogen content (a way of storing carbohydrate energy in the muscle cells) and less lactic acid (that contributes to muscle soreness after exercise) build-up than control mice. The researchers suggest that these effects of green tea extract might be partly due to increased use of fat as the energy source for exercising muscles. Am J Physiol Regulatory Integrative Comp Physiol, January 12, 2006.

Tea and Health News provided by: TheTeaTable.com

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