Quantum Mechanics, Green Tea & Health

Nanowerk News recently reported on an interesting connection between quantum mechanics, green tea and health. Scientists at the Autonomous University of Barcelona in Spain have modeled the chemical reaction that allows green tea catechins to zap antioxidants.

Their findings are available in a report called Tunneling in Green Tea: Understanding the Antioxidant Activity of Catechol-Containing Compounds. A Variational Transition-State Theory Study. It's available from the American Chemical Society, for a price, though I'm guessing it's not exactly what you'd call beach reading.

If you'd like a condensed and more user-friendly version of the above, check out the Nanowerk News article, here.

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Iced Tea Time

That's right. It's iced tea time. A few months ago the Tea and Coffee Trade Journal got the jump on iced tea season with A Primer on Premium Iced Tea, by David DeCandia, tea buyer for The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. Though the article is geared toward an industry audience, it makes for interesting reading nonetheless.

Over the years, we've written assorted and sundry things about iced tea. If you're looking for more information, click the Iced Tea category link at the bottom of this post.

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Tracing Tea & All In This Tea

A 15,000 kilometer expedition to "trace the old trading routes and influence of tea from Calcutta, India to London, England." Why didn't I think of that?

Well, never mind. Someone else did and they're calling their project Tracing Tea. They describe it as "the international collaboration of seven students, who have a love of tea strong enough to survive 15,000 km in three-wheeled autorickshaws."

It's all to celebrate the 350th anniversary of tea's introduction to Britain. The plan is for the group to document their travels in the form of a TV program, articles, a book, and a blog. Read more about the adventure at the Tracing Tea Web site.

All In This Tea is a documentary film that follows, as its makers put it, "world-renowned tea expert David Lee Hoffman to some of the most remote regions of China in search of the best handmade teas in the world." Sounds like a winner to me. The film is directed by Gina Leibrecht and Les Blank.

Find out more at Blank's Web site. There's also info at the HotDocs and San Francisco International Film Festival sites.

Image: Tracing Tea

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Lephet (Tea Salad)

Lephet, also known as La-phat, La-phet, or letphet, is a pickled tea salad popular in Myanmar (Burma). You can read about it here and here, though the English in both articles is a little rough. If Myanmar's too far to go and you're ever in the vicinity of Fort Wayne, Indiana, swing by Golden House Asian Cuisine and sample some.

For another spelling variation and an interesting, article on the delicacy, go to In Pursuit of Tea's Web site and read Sebastian Beckwith's short piece.

Here's an article from CuisineNet about Burmese cuisine. It offers more information about the dish, including a recipe that substitutes ginger for tea. It's probably safe to say that you could ditch the ginger and put the tea back in, though the author claims Burmese tea is a key component in the recipe.

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Green Tea Hype?

If you've been hanging around here long enough you'll know that I'm unimpressed by many of the lofty claims made for tea. Specifically in the area of health benefits and more specifically with regard to green tea - though white tea seems to be catching up in this area.

Which is not to say that I don't believe there are benefits to drinking tea - regardless of the color. I happen to believe that there are. But I also agree with the guy who said there's a sucker born every minute. Unfortunately, there never seems to be a shortage of con artists vying for the chance to fleece these suckers.

I've been meaning to discourse on this topic for a while, but Slate beat me to it recently, in the form of Jacob Weisberg's article, The Green Teaing of America. Well said.

Newsweek also tackled the topic a little while back, in slightly more uncertain terms, in a brief article called Up Close and Edible: Green Tea.

From the Australian press, here's an article called Beware the Hype if Going Alternative, which discusses claims made for tea and other products.

If you thought that Coke's Eniviga was going to be the only so-called calorie-burning tea drink on the block, guess again. Here's the Web site for Celsius, a beverage that comes in five flavors, all of which contain "Green Tea leaf extract," among other things.

Last up, is a piece that doesn't have to do with tea, but which reports on a beverage maker - GlaxoSmithKline - that admitted to misleading consumers regarding alleged health benefits.

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Manilow Tea, Coffee Tea & More

Contactmusic.com reports that singer Barry Manilow is set to release a line of herbal teas, which will be sold at his Web site. Among the varieties, Strawberry Kiwi and Mango Rose Green. There's a Copacabana variety currently selling at the site, though it's listed as not available right now.

I'm not sure what to make of this one. Some time back I wrote about kootee, a tea that's brewed from leaves of the coffee tree. Imagine that. If you can't stand to give up your coffee, but you'd like some tea too, Spava might be just the thing for you. Spava is an organic, fair-trade coffee that comes in six varieties, some of which include tea.

Here's an article about Japanese actress Ryoko Hirosue, who is the spokesperson for a Coca-Cola product called Karada Meguricha. It's said to contain "eight Eastern ingredients including Korean ginseng, and four types of tea including pu-erh tea and oolong tea."

Image: Spava

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Tea In Smithsonian

Tea turned up in Smithsonian Magazine a few months ago. Well, actually it turned up as a Web Only exclusive at the magazine's site, so don't bother paging through your print issues looking for the article.

Tea's Time asserts that "the ancient drink" is making a comeback. Which appears to be the case here in the United States, but in a lot of other countries it's probably safe to say that it never went away.

The article is located here. It's a good Tea 101 type overview and there are a number of good photos to boot.

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