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Participant A commented:
Thanks, Leo, for your comments and the teaguardian article; however, the article does not state that thearubigin has not been found to be an effective antioxidant, rather that it has not been isolated in health studies (which is quite a different matter). The Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity of green and black tea has been measured, with the capacity of black tea being slightly higher than that of green (see Tea for Health by Tissa Amarakoon, Tea Research Institute of Sri Lanka, 2004).I responded:
Thearubgin has not been found as an effective antioxidant, while it is commonly known in the science community that tea catechins, such as EGCG, actually work. You can read a bit more in this and related articles:As for what oolong (the original posting was started by someone commenting on the health benefits of oolong) really is, here is a primer for those others who want to read or write further about the topic:On that note, refer to the Tea Guardian in the chapter on quality basics, four pages starting:
I forgot: reference this Tea Guardian article:
Thx for posting the article. The issue is exactly one major reason why tea plucking daily wages have gone up so rapidly in recent years. This year, some regions report 150 RMB (approx $21) a day and food, boarding, and traveling provided.
The interesting thing is although the report cited an Anxi county story, the photo of the leaf gatherers is in some other region using a cutter (the tea trees are not oolong cultivars too), which traditional oolong regions do not employ. It actually raises a significant question, whether the editor of that article intends it or not: are we going to see tea production costing going the extremes — traditional hand-plucked teas becoming extremely expensive because of the rising cost of labour, while the majority of the market will be forced to cut leaf teas? Or are we already “progressing” in this direction?mbanu,
Thank you for sharing the references. William Ukers has been a hero but we all know the accuracy of our knowledge improves with time as more and more scholars share efforts in improving the understanding of things.Quite many years ago I took notice of this “mushroom” tea trend in the West. The kombucha that is popular in the West today has not been well documented here in the East. As a matter of fact, I cannot personally find any historical writing about it in the Chinese language. Yet it is presumed that this comes from the East. Your reference is really contemporary.That’s okay. It really is not my concern that there are new flavours of bottled drinks somewhere in the market. There are new ones almost every other week anyway. It is my concern though, that it has the association of tea and is potentially toxic and is not health contributing as it claims so loudly to be. There are quite a number of official announcements disqualifying the claims, but I think you may like to read this more accessible one on the net by NYU:The thousand years of human heritage has left for us a lot of treasures and it is up to us to select those that is worth our continual efforts in developing. Tea is one. As for kombucha, I have much doubt in it.Right on. However, the final quality s hugely affected by not only the original quality of the leaves, but also the way the tea is stored and matured.
@ Sara, There are previous discussions on this topic. You can type in the word gaiwan in the search box to see relevant posts. We are not able to find any good quality on the internet offering at reasonable prices. Sorry. Maybe I should offer this later in my own shop? Will post here when I do.
Interestingly, there is another such discussion in another internet tea group. I think Amadeus is right that adding things to tea muddles the original fine taste. However, if your tea is not so good to start with, there is nothing wrong in putting things to it to make it taste better.
On the effects of milk and sugar on tea, the real concern is not about the lowering of anti-oxidative effect, but rather the adverse health effect of the habit of sugar and milk throughout the day.
