Tea Facts and Quotations

• Until the 1860's, the main crop on the island of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) was coffee. In 1869 a coffee rust killed virtually all the coffee bushes and planters were forced to consider another crop - tea!
• An experienced tea taster can tell you all there is to know about a tea - including the height at which it was grown, the time of day it was plucked, and the weather on that day. Wow!
• For a nation that prefers coffee, the U.S. drinks its share of tea too! The U.S. consumes enough tea each year to fill 160,000 swimming pools - that's 50 billion servings. 90% of that tea is black tea, and 80% of it is iced. (Alas, for a hot beverage, coffee rules . . .)

Tea and Health News

The bacterium Helicobacter pylori can cause ulcers and, while antibiotics are used against it, there have been reports of antibiotic-resistant strains. Because green tea catechins are known to have an antibiotic effect, a recent study examined their effectiveness against Helicobacter pylori. Oral solutions of green tea catechins were given for 10 days to gerbils infected with the bacterium. The colonies of bacteria were significantly reduced by the green tea catechin solution, leading researchers to conclude that green tea catechins may be an effective agent against Helicobacter pylori. Although this study doesn't necessarily mean that drinking green tea will prevent or cure ulcers, human trials with tea or tea extracts would be very interesting. J Gastroenterol, January 1, 2004;39(1):61-3.

Tea and Health News provided by: TheTeaTable.com

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