How To Make Perfect Tea

As a tea drinker of some 30 years experience here is my contribution as to what makes the perfect cup of tea. The best way to make tea has been a subject of great debate for centuries.
Good quality water is essential for the perfect cup of tea. If you use tap water then run the tap until the water is cold and fresh. Spring water is best due to its purity and lack of additives such as chlorine and fluoride which can affect the taste. Always use fresh water if possible.

1.
2. Preferably use a teapot made of china or earthenware.
Pots made of certain types of metal such as enamel silver
or copper can impart flavor to the water. Stainless steel
is okay.
Warm the pot beforehand with a little hot water. 3.
4. Add at least one level teaspoon for each cup of water
that you are going to add. Adding loose tea to the pot is
the best way for the tea to infuse properly but many people
prefer to use a tea strainer or infusing basket for
convenience sake.
Pour boiling water directly onto the leaves and then stir the water before placing lid back on the teapot. 5.
6. Let the tea steep for between four and five minutes. If
using green tea three minutes is best.
Remove or strain the leaves to avoid overbrewing. 7.
8. The cup that you drink out of can greatly affect the
taste of the tea so choose wisely. A good quality cup made
of china will definitely enhance the whole tea drinking
experience. Avoid wide shallow cups which cause the tea to
cool in next to no time.
9. Pour milk into the cup first. Ah, yes this is the step
that causes most controversy. Many an argument has been
had concerning whether or not it is best to add the milk to
the tea or vice versa. I have always preferred milk first
then tea but my husband argues that it is easier to
regulate the right amount of milk by adding milk
afterwards!
Now scientists have waded into the debate and the verdict
is clear. The UK Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC)has warned
against the practice of adding milk to tea after it is
poured. It seems that dribbling a stream of milk into hot
water makes "denaturation of milk proteins" more likely.
And who would want that?! At high temperatures, milk
proteins - which are normally all curled up foetus-like,
begin to unfold and link together in clumps. This is what
happens in UHT [ultra heat-treated] milk, and is why it
doesn't taste as good a fresh milk," says Dr Andrew
Stapley, a chemical engineer at Loughborough University.
It is better to have the chilled milk massed at the bottom
of the cup, awaiting the stream of hot tea. This allows the
milk to cool the tea, rather than the tea ruinously raise
the temperature of the milk.
Umm, somehow I don't think so!! The milk or tea first debate is now over! So it is now settled.
10. Lastly, drink tea without any sugar. I must admit to
being a reformed sugary tea drinker and you know what that
means. Yes, I am now passionately against putting sugar in
tea. As one who has sat on both sides of the fence I can
say that tea is so much better without sweetening. Sugar
only serves to mask the taste of the tea. Not only that too
much sugar is not good for you and why spoil what is now
being recognized as one of the world's great health drinks
by adding sugar. When I stopped taking my two spoonfuls of
sugar in my tea it took me about three or four weeks to get
used to the new taste. However once I got used to it there
was no going back.
So there you have it - the perfect cup of tea!
Lorraine Bevere is the webmaster and operator of FOG
Tea
For questions or comments about this article, please visit: which is a premier source of information about tea.
http://fogtea.com

Green Tea Has Just The Right Amount Of Caffeine With No Side Effects

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If you're looking for a coffee or soda substitute with just the right amount of caffeine enough to keep you awake and energized without the nervousness, chronic muscle tension, irritability, headaches, depression, and insomnia, Japanese Green Tea is exactly what you've been looking for. Green tea caffeine does not make you jittery or nervous.
Japanese Green Tea offers the best of both worlds when it comes to caffeine -- just enough to provide a stimulating pick-me-up that banishes unwanted drowsiness, but not enough to trigger nervousness or sleepless nights.
Ever since eight-century Buddhist monks discovered that tea helped them remain awake during long meditation sessions, tea has been used to boost lagging energy, refresh the mind, and brighten up the mood.
Caffeine increases your heartbeat, improves your alertness, your reaction time gets faster and your general mood becomes more "upbeat".
But to get the benefits of caffeine, you only need to consume the recommended caffeine intake.
The recommended caffeine intake per day is 200 mg.
Soda contains between 40 to 60 mg and a cup of drip coffee has a nerve-jangling 90 to 150 mg, more than half the amount of caffeine that some people should consume in a whole day. Soda contains between 40 to 60 mg. Soda contains between 40 to 60 mg.

Soda contains between 40 to 60 mg. Soda contains between 40 to 60 mg. Soda contains between 40 to 60 mg. The average cup of green tea contains anywhere from 8 to 20 mg of caffeine, while black tea contains at least twice that amount -- 40 to 60 mg.
Just 3 cups of coffee a day is enough to give you the problems like headaches, depression, insomnia, irritability and nervousness, if consumed on a daily basis for a long period of time.
Still, green tea does have a "brightening" effect. It would take at least 4 cups of the strongest green tea to equal the caffeine content of the weakest drip coffee.
Rose Antonio has been a green tea drinker for many, many years. She has a special interest in alternative healing and natural remedies.
Though she has tried different types of tea from different countries, she always go back to Japanese Green Tea not only because of its taste but more so because of its amazing health benefits gathered from years and years of research and from talking to many health enthusiasts.

Kombucha Ancient Healing Tea From Fermented Mushroom

The use of microorganisms for medicinal use is certainly not new.
Mainstream antibiotics are derived from microorganisms (such as penicillin) and pathogens (such as polio or smallpox) play a role in vaccine development. And we use the friendly organisms in acidophilus (found in yogurt, kefir and tablets) to restore the beneficial flora in our intestines.
Kombucha, or Mandarin Mushroom Tea is a specially fermented tea that you can make at home with a simple recipe. You need a "baby" Kombucha to begin and you can either buy the baby, or get one free from an avid Kombucha tea drinker. Each mushroom comes with step-by-step instructions, or you can get written instructions from the person who is giving you a baby Kombucha mushroom.
It is a flat, dark, pancake looking mushroom and looks very odd in the bowel as it ferments. Kombucha tea, when fermented properly, offers a host of beneficial microorganisms. Although the Kombucha mushroom has been around, and used for medicinal purposes for thousands of years, it was considered an exotic Chinese Mushroom until this century.
Before the days of modern food preparation and packaging for commercial resale, fermenting food was how people preserved foods. Lactic acid fermentation was the most popular way to preserve food. Vegetables, cheese, cured meats, and other whole, unrefined foods were kept down in the basement, especially in the winter. These old basements were not completely sealed from air, light or moisture. Preserving food via fermentation today would be considered primitive by today's standards. When we lost our old fashioned ability to maintain the active constituents of raw food by lactic acid fermentation, our rate of cancer and other diseases skyrocketed.
Research into lactic acid's ability to kill cancer cells in vitro, and its ability to work with beneficial flora in the intestines has emerged as a new science once again. Our own bodies manufacture some lactic acid, as a weapon against disease, but there was a time when our natural diet supplied lactic acid too.
What are some of the health benefits of consuming foods rich in lactic acid?
From acetylcholine, we develop choline, which is an important brain chemical and is involved in healthy blood pressure. · The lactic acid fermentation process promotes the development of acetylcholine which promotes healthy neurotransmitters, the cells that relay nervous signals across the body.
· Lactic acid fermented foods are rich in enzymes and Vitamins A, C, and B. Enzyme deficiency is the root cause of many diseases.
· Lactic Acid makes the bowel environment very unfriendly toward viruses and bacteria and aids in the healthy expulsion of such pathogens.
It usually takes about 4-7 days for a Kombucha mushroom to produce the ordinary looking tea. I find the tea very refreshing…a cross between bubbly champagne and apple cider. Most people find it very tasty too. It may not be a cure all, but it is a healthy drink for most people.
It probably seems very odd that Kombucha tea is made with white sugar instead of raw, whole sugar. But the mushroom consumes and completely alters the sugar in a few days during the fermentation process. And the mushroom does not seem to produce any babies if you use unrefined sugar. I have not found a naturopath to advise against diabetics using the tea, but if you are diabetic maybe you should check with your local naturopath or licensed clinical nutritionist who is schooled in Chinese mushroom herbology. I have seen Kombucha successfully used in candida yeast support therapy and it does not seem to harm anyone who has a lactose allergy. Many Chinese Medicine doctors are familiar with Mandarin Kombucha tea, but most westerners are not.
Kombucha tea drinkers swear by it. It appears to help a wide range of health problems. And we already know that all teas are very healthy drinks.
Bubbly anyone? So why not give Kombucha a try?

Green Tea - A Tea from the Far East

Although these claims have not been proven, there is documentation for belief in them that goes back over a thousand years. Its rise is linked in many ways to that of the alternative health movement, which sees green tea as having a range of traditional healing properties and abilities to cure diseases. Green tea is a kind of tea that has been very popular in China and Japan for centuries, and has recently seen a massive explosion in popularity in the West.
Although most supermarkets still only stock one form of generic ‘green tea', which is usually of very poor quality, health food and herbal shops will generally have a whole range of high-quality, albeit expensive, green teas to choose from. Most green tea drinkers still import their tea from the East, considering this to be the best tea, and some green teas have become especially famous, such as Japanese sencha, and the Chinese teas Longjing, Hou Kui, Piluochun, and many more besides. Some green tea is produced outside China and Japan, but it is mostly considered to be cheap imitations of the ‘real thing' and not worth paying attention to, with the possible exception of a few Indian teas.
The mythos surrounding tea in Eastern cultures allows the Western green tea drinker to feel that they are taking part in something ancient, traditional and mysterious simply by drinking green tea, and to a certain extent they are. Tea holds an interesting place in Chinese culture, too, with making tea often being used as a means of non-verbal communication to express sentiments like "I'm sorry" or "thank you". Participating in the ceremony at all requires intimate knowledge of how it works, meaning that few non-Japanese have ever done so. In Japan, green tea is used as part of a ‘tea ceremony', a Buddhist tradition where tea is specially prepared and served to the people present.
John Gibb is the owner of
green tea resources
For more information on green tea please check out
http://www.green-tea-guidance.info