With the holidays upon us, the urge to consume staggering quantities of rich, often unhealthy, food grabs hold of us all! But don’t worry, there is a healthy way to indulge: tea and chocolate together! Some may think that pairing tea with chocolate is a little strange, but actually, they have a lot of components in common, including caffeine and polyphenols such as tannins and flavinoids.
Here’s a rundown on why it makes sense to pair tea and chocolate – both for your palette, and your health!
Caffeine
As you probably know, tea and chocolate offer significant doses of caffeine. In addition to giving your a little “lift” after consuming them, a variety of new studies suggest that caffeine (in moderation), can help stave off many neurological disorders, such as Alzeheimers or dementia.
Flavonoids
Flavonoids are a class of polyphehols that are somewhat bitter in flavor. There are many studies indicating that flavonoids are anti-allergic, anti-carcinogenic, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and anti-microbial. Happily, tea and chocolate are both fantastic sources of flavonoids!
Tannins
Tannins (a type of flavinoid) are an astringent, mildly-bitter molecule that lends both tea and chocolate that rich, somewhat puckery flavor we so enjoy! It could be these molecules that facilitate the pairing of chocolate with tea.
As it turns out, treating yourself to tea and chocolate is a great way to cater to that holiday snack hankering, but still maintain your healthy lifestyle. This winter, try pampering yourself with some of Arbor Teas’ Tea Infused Chocolate Truffles! Of course, they make fabulous gifts for those foodies friends of yours, too!
December 05 2010 | Tea and Health and Tea Facts | No Comments »
As an environmentally conscious consumer, it can be tough to reconcile the material excess of the holiday season with one’s concern for the planet. But how do you cut down on your environmental impact without sacrificing the joys of the season? It’s easier than you think, actually. Aside from sticking with gifts that are inherently more Earth-friendly (such as organic, recycled/recyclable, carbon-offset, etc.), here are some ideas to get you started:
Carpool and Minimize/Consolidate Trips
So you’ve decided to go to the mall – a popular activity this time of year! More than likely, your friends and neighbors need to do a little shopping too, so why not team up and carpool? They may even have gift ideas that you hadn’t considered. But if you already know what you’re going to buy, be sure to plan your route to minimize unnecessary, gas-wasting travel.
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December 03 2010 | Green Business and Sustainability | No Comments »
We’re taking things to the next level with this edition of our pronunciation guide to Chinese tea terms, moving on to the term for pu-erh!
普洱
Meaning: These two characters together mean pu-erh tea. The “普” character means “general” or “universal”, while the “洱” character represents the name of a lake in the Yunnan province in Southern China. Together, these two characters stand for the region in which pu-erh tea is produced. At Arbor Teas, we’ve assembled an nice little selection of organic pu-erh teas from the Yunnan province for the adventurous to try.
Pronunciation: The first character is pronounced “pu”, just as it’s written in English, with the pitch rising at the end of the word similar to a question in English. Then, the second character is pronouced like the first two letters of the word “army”, its intonation being lower than the final pitch of the first syllable.
By now, you’ve certainly impressed the pants off of your afternoon tea guests with your growing knowledge of Chinese tea pronunciation! Stay tuned for our next installment, “oolong tea“.
December 02 2010 | Tea Pronunciation | No Comments »
There’s something alluring about the way gunpowder green tea pellets unfurl in hot water. The leaves lift and twirl in a delicate dance, bending and turning with invisible currents and convection in the water. Half of the fun of drinking this tea is in the experience of watching the leaves unfold; the other half is in the nutty, vegetal flavor – often with a hint of smoke. But if you think that’s all there is to gunpowder tea, you might be surprised to know that this tea has a rich history and is much older than you’d expect.
In the Beginning
Gunpowder teas are green teas native to the Zhejiang Province of China, and have been around since the Tang dynasty (618-907 CE). Though Zhejiang has historically been the primary source of gunpowder teas, a number of other provinces now contribute to the production of this style, in addition to locales beyond China’s borders.
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November 22 2010 | Tea Facts | No Comments »
What could be better than a warm cup of your favorite organic green tea? How about knowing that cuppa you just enjoyed is likely to bring you major health benefits today and into the future?! While there have been many studies linking green tea and healthy living, it can be hard to stay on top of all this information. That’s why we’ve pulled together the following five studies from the past year that we found to be most interesting.
1. Green Tea vs. Breast Cancer
A recent study out of the biology department of East Carolina University published in Cancer Genomics Proteomics supports prior findings that the antioxidants in green tea may help protect against breast cancer. In the study, researchers found that treatment involving green tea extract decreased the development of the MCF-7 human breast cancer cells, which lead to a further decrease in cancerous tumor cells in the breast. The researchers concluded that green tea may be a strong tumor constrictor, hence, people with a family history of breast cancer may benefit from drinking green tea.
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November 21 2010 | Tea and Health | 1 Comment »
In this edition of our guide to the proper pronunciation of Chinese tea terms, we give you another fundamental tea term: “black tea“!
红茶
Meaning: Just like the Chinese term for “green tea“, by adding another character before “chá” we arrive at the Chinese term for “black tea”! Although the literal meaning of this term is actually “red tea”, it refers to what English speakers call “black tea”, and should not be confused with rooibos, which is often mistakenly referred to as “red tea”.
Pronunciation: This term is pronounced “hongchá.” Since many of us have the affliction of a Mid-Western accent, we should take extra care on this first part “hong.” The vowel should be pronounced as though we were saying the word “hoe”, then closing it off with the -ng. The tonality for this term is actually just a repetition of the rising tone twice. The “hong” part should sound like a question, as should the “cha” part.
Now you’ve got the Chinese pronunciation of three essential tea terms under your belt! Stay tuned for our next installment, “pu-erh tea“.
November 12 2010 | Tea Pronunciation | No Comments »
The holiday season is fast approaching, and what better gift to give your favorite tea lover than a high-quality, well-selected teapot? You could just buy whatever’s on sale and call it a day, or you could do a little research and get just the right teapot for your tea enthusiast to make that perfect cup of tea. Kick-start your search right here with our teapot selection guide!
So Many Teapots, So Little Time
In your quest for the perfect teapot, you’re likely to encounter an incredible variety of styles and materials suited to different needs. While there are many compelling reasons to buy one teapot or another, we believe that the material the teapot is made from is among the most important.
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November 11 2010 | Tea Preparation and Teaware | 1 Comment »
Tea is a relatively energy-efficient beverage. A cup of tea, made by boiling only the amount of water you need, produces only about a tenth of the carbon footprint generated by a large cup of cappuccino (Source: “The World’s Water, 2008-2009″ by Peter Gleick, et al, www.waterfootprint.org). To put this into perspective, if you drink four cups of black tea every day for a year, you would have only used up as much energy as a single 40-mile car ride. On the other hand, the energy involved in a three-a-day latte habit is equivalent to flying halfway to Europe!
What Does Carbon Have To Do With Cold Brewing Tea?
Actually, there is even more you can do to reduce your CO2 emissions when it comes to tea-making. We covered a variety of “green brewing” techniques in a previous post. These are certainly great ways to reduce your carbon footprint, but there is yet another easy and practical alternative to the regular brewing process: cold-brewing! As its name suggests, this technique involves making your favorite tea with cold water, slashing energy consumption by eliminating the water-heating process.
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November 06 2010 | Energy and Sustainability and Tea Preparation | 1 Comment »
In this edition of our guide to the proper pronunciation of Chinese tea terms, we give you another basic, albeit very important, term: “green tea“!
绿茶
Meaning: If you saw our first installment in this pronunciation series, the second part of this word should seem familiar to you! It is “chá” from before, the word for tea. By adding another character before “chá,” we arrive at the term “green tea,” which is the most commonly imbibed type of tea in China!
Pronunciation: Together the term for green tea is “lü chá.” The pronunciation of the first character is a little tricky. Technically, it is written as “lü” and pronounced as a combination of the sounds “lee” and “loo,” in a manner sort of like the German umlaut. The tonality for this is somewhat more difficult as well. Where “chá” started low in pitch and moved higher, like a question, “lü” moves from high to low in pitch. It is sort of the reverse of the tonality for “chá.”
Alright, now head out to your favorite cafe and practice what you’ve learned over a nice pot of lü chá, and get ready for our next installment, “black tea“!
November 05 2010 | Tea Pronunciation | 1 Comment »
As you probably know, there are tons of creams and ointments that claim to reverse and/or eliminate the aging of skin. Most of them are costly, and their effectiveness is questionable at best. But here’s some good news: a new study from the Mohave Skin and Cancer clinic corroborates past evidence that the use of green tea in skin treatments (sometimes called “cosmeceuticals”) may be a great way to limit the signs of aging skin!
Your Skin’s Best Friends: Antioxidants, Polyphenols and EGCG
While all teas contain a fair amount of antioxidants, researchers consistently agree that green tea has the highest concentrations. The principle benefit of antioxidants is that they remove free radicals and inhibit inflammation. Free radicals are agents in the body that start harmful reactions that damage your cells. The more antioxidants active in the body, the less damage is caused by free radicals.
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November 05 2010 | Tea and Health | No Comments »
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Here’s a rundown on why it makes sense to pair tea and chocolate – both for your palette, and your health!