A Bud N One Leaf

Brewing tea is an art in the Orient, the earliest formal tea ritual or ceremony could be traced back to China's Tang Dynasty (618 - 907AD). According to existing records of the time, Tea ritual/ceremony was popular and developed into a full sensorial enjoyment, with unique requirements upon venue, decoration, tools, etiquette, procedure and practices, etc. In LuYu's famous tea encyclopedia "Tea Classic", the Chinese Tea Saint elaborated tea rituals in a comprehensive coverage.

Tea rituals were often performed during tea banquets, 3 types of tea banquets were most famous:

Court Tea Banquet - hold by the emperor or the loyal families, it was a rare and great honor to be invited. Uncommon delicacies would be served in containers made of gold, jade, other expensive materials and outstanding craftsmanship.

Monastery Tea Banquet - hold in monasteries, with the most fresh vegetarian foods and specialty tea made by the monks.

Scholar Tea Banquet - A scholars' party boasts of the presence of gourmet foods and drinks, celebrity courtesans, and famous scholars.

In 1259, A Japanese monk came to Zhejiang's JinShan Monastery, he studied Monastery Tea Banquet, and later brought it back to Japan. This became the start of Japanese Tea Ceremony, and it also explains why Japanese tea rituals have the influence of Zen Buddhism. In the 16^th century, Japanese Tea Ceremony was fully established both in theories and practices by a famous monk Sen no Rikyu, who was a tea master himself.

A set of tea tools and accessories was developed for tea ritual. The most comprehensive set contains over 20 pieces of tea tools and accessories, each serves a specific function in a traditional tea ritual. To avoid intimidating and confusing my dear readers, I only list the most commonly used during brewing:

1. Tea tin / Tea chest - storing tea or teabag.

2. Tea spoon - scooping loose tea into tea cup or teapot

3. Tea towel - clearing water drops during tea preparation

4. Tea cup - serving individual drinker, for some cups matching tea saucers are needed.

5. Tea pot - preparing tea

6. Tea Tray - holding tea cups, tea pot and tea towel

7. Tea kettle - boiling water

8. Tea timer - setting up infusing time

Green tea is a beverage full of natural antioxidant and Vitamin C, it is a great thirsty quencher and an ideal dietary drink containing no calories. Drinking green tea could help burn body fat and regulate body glucose level. It also could reduce the risks of heart disease and certain cancers.

However, as every coin gets two sides, even though green tea is all natural and nutritious, it is not a "suit for all" beverage, for females in certain periods, it is more prudent to drink less than 5g of green tea per day or stop drinking at all:

1. Menstruation

Menstruation would cause loss of considerable amount of iron by bleeding, it is advisable to take foods that contain high level of iron, such as green vegetables, grapes, apple and meat. Green tea contains high level of tea tannins (tea polyphenols), which would react with irons in the digestion system and reduce iron absorption rate.

So never drink green tea immediately after meals, wait at least 2 hours after meal to drink green tea. And reduce green tea intake to less than 5 g a day, avoid drink a strong cup.

2. Pregnancy

During pregnancy, a female needs a lot of nutrition supplements for the growth of her fetus. Green tea would affect the absorption of iron supplements which is vital to fetal development. Also green tea contains caffeine, a substance when overdosed would increase chances of miscarriage and low birth weight. Heavy caffeine intake would also burden heart and kidney functions of pregnant women, induce high blood pressure and . The common safe threshold for total caffeine intake during pregnancy is below 300mg per day. A cup of green tea contains about 25 mg caffeine (a cup of coffee contains 100mg caffeine.).

So pay attention to tea drink during pregnancy, don't drink tea right after a meal or after take an iron capsule. Differed by individual tolerance to caffeine, green tea consumption should be reduced to 5g a day, or stop at all.

3. Lactation

It is believed by the Chinese that strong cups of tea would decrease milk supply. Also caffeine could enter into milk, cause alertness and over reaction in your baby.

So don't drink too much tea during lactation.

Green tea with selected flowers, blossoming to a hot brew.

INGREDIENTS:

3gm Ginseng flower, 3gm green tea

PREPARATION:

Put the above ingredients into a cup, fill with freshly boiled water, steep for 1 minute

SERVE:

Drink warm. (refill and serve 2 more rounds)

HEALTHY EFFECTS:

boost immune system, rejuvenate strength, anti-tumor.

INGREDIENTS:

6gm cooked black sesame, 3gm green tea

PREPARATION:

Put the above ingredients into a cup, fill with freshly boiled water, steep for 5 minutes.

SERVE:

Drink warm

HEALTHY EFFECTS:

Good for liver and kidney function.

INGREDIENTS:

6gm Dried Longan, 3gm Spring Green Tea

PREPARATION:

Put the above into boiling water, cook for 50 seconds.

SERVE:

Drink warm, and eat the Longan

EFFECTS:

Anti-stress, a tonic has good help with insomnia, forgetfulness, faint and weariness.

INGREDIENTS:

25 - 30gm Dates, 10gm Ginger, 1 - 1.5gm Black Tea

PREPARATION:

Cook dates in boiling water till well done, drain and set aside; cut ginger into thin slices, coated the ginger slices with honey and bake dry, set aside. Put prepared dates, ginger slice and black tea into a cup, fill in freshly boiled water, steep for 5 minutes.

SERVE:

Drink warm, and eat the dates.

EFFECTS:

Increase blood circulation, improve digestion, drive away "coldness" in stomach that would cause gastric disorder, heart born etc.

Oolong Tea also called blue / indigo tea in China, it's a semi-fermented* tea with oxidizing level in-between green and black tea.  The name Oolong came from the name of a tea grower.

About 1000 years ago, there was a tea grower named Oolong, who was also a good hunter. One spring morning, Oolong went up hill to pluck fresh tea leaves with a tea basket fastened to his waist, he collected half a basket by noon when he saw a deer slipped by. Oolong fired his gun and wounded the deer. The animal was startled and ran for life, Oolong hastily ran after it without taken off his tea basket. After hours of chasing, he finally caught the deer and took it home. The night, all the attention was caught by the animal, nobody thought of processing the tea Oolong took back.

The next morning, when Oolong took out his tea basket, he found the leaves were bruised by shaking inside the basket during his deer chasing, and withered overnight. The leaves lost greenery appearance, yet had a very pleasant flavor, the batch of tea made from these leaves sold faster than ever. Oolong experimented with fresh leaves to and mastered the skills of making this new type of tea, which peopled called as Oolong Tea.

Oolong teas are grown from Fujian, Guangdong and Taiwan. There are many types, e.g. Iron Goddess (south Fujian), Wuyi Rocky Tea, Taiwan Dongding etc.

*fermented: an dated jargon referring to the oxidation stage in tea producing. Tea "fermentation" need plenty of oxygen, it's not the denotation meaning of fermentation.

Chinese believe that drinking tea is good to health, modern researches found that such sayings have some scientific background. Tea contains an effective antioxidant : Tea Polyphenols (15-25% in dry tea), which is a compounds mainly consists of Catechins (around 70% in tea polyphenols), or known as tea tannins.

Studies confirmed Catechins (or tea polyphenols) has the following bio-functions:

anti-free radical

anti-oxidizing

anti-septic

anti-viral

anti-tumor

anti-mutation (animal test only)

Green tea contains more catechins than black due to the less oxidizing processing method which preserves more effective nutrients in fresh leaves.

Catechins extracted from green are used in food industry* as an antioxidant, and in health-care industry as UV blocker, health supplements and dental care supplements.

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*Tea polyphenols' application in food industry to acquire extended shelf life:

1. Bakery. add into products that contain fat/oil, e.g. moon cake, instant noodle, cheese. could partially neutrilize the "sticky" mouth-feel caused by high sugar foods.

2. Soft drink. add to soy bean milk, fruit juice and produce flavored RTD tea.

3. Green grocery. spray solutions to vegetables and fruits. could better preserve the original color of green grocery.

4. Meat Product. add to sausages, tins, etc.

5. Edible Oil. Main subject of my post graduation research in University: tea polyphenols were added into commercial vegetable oils in different dosage, compare with comparing groups add with BHA or Vitamin E, and control group without any antioxidants.