Tea 101: What to do if your tea is too strong? Follow the Russians

It's a busy morning. You put some of your favorite tea into your beautiful teapot, and pour some hot water over, but completely forget about it. 2 hours later, when you are thirsty, oh boy, the tea has been brewed for too long to be drinkable. What would you do then? Some say they add more milk, more sugar to make it creamy and sweetie...That surely will do! But, if you drink 4-6 cups of this kind of tea, that's a lot of calaries added, isn't it?


Have you heard of any stories about tea tradition in Russia? In old tradition, (they probably still do it nowadays), Russians make their teas very strong in a teapot, then pour into teacups in small portion, topped with boiling water to adjust the strength.

So do not feel bad if you brew your tea for too long time. You jut accidentally follow the Russian tea tradition my dear friend!! The only thing you need to do is to add some hot water to make it a perfect cuppa.

Now you know you are the Russian tea expert;)) Try it and let me know what ya think?!

Health: How much tea should we drink per day?

It brought to my attention when someone told me that he drinks 10 cups of tea per day. He said, "you know, green tea has EGCG, good for you. The more the better, so that the EGCG, good guys, can kill all of the free radicals, the bad guys, in my body"...

Unless something else is going on, if you drink 10 cups of tea per day, you need to 1) sit next to a restroom (try it, you will know i'm right, seriously); 2) have a productive kidney; 3) possbile a good heart

The main factors determine how many cups of tea we drink include:

1. % of Polyphenols in tea (including EGCG): it accounts for roughly 20-30% of dried tea leaves in terms of weight.

2. % of alkaloid, such as caffeine, theophylline, etc. Accounts for roughly 3-5% of dried leaves

3. How much liquid should we drink per day. As I mentioned in my previous post, in average, we should drink 32-48 oz of liquid per day to keep our body functioning and balanced.


Based upon the statistics above, we should use maximum 6-8 grams of dried tea leaves, Or 3-4 servings per day. Depends on how strong your tea is brewed. If light, you can drink slightly more. If strong (do not recommend it in general. I will discuss it in a separate article), 1-2 cups of tea can get your body activated in the morning.

So to be perfectly healthy,
1-2 cups per day, a good "gotcha"!!
3-4 cups per day, "catch me if you can"!!
4-6 cups...STOP, right there!! that's enough! if you'd like to drink more, do it tomorrow, my dear friend!
Do you drink both coffee and tea?

Health: How much liquid should I drink per day

Some say 2 cups a day, or 8 cups per day, While some believe drink whenever you are thirsty.

Let's do the numbers.

So the question is how much liquid should a person drink per day:


Assume everything is under normal circumstances, meaning no special conditions need to be considered, such as illness/taking medicine, preganancy, dry climate, exercising, oil-drinkers (!), eat 5 pounds of watermelon per day, etc

Based upon my research, in average, we should take 2 liters (64 oz) liquid per day, including everything. Here's where I get my numbers: We lose liquid via breathing, sweating, and generating "nature fertilizers" (urine & bowel, etc. that's a lot restroom runs), roughly 2 liter (64 oz) per day. This should be how much liquid we need to take in order to keep the balance. See, our body functions more like a recycle program;) Amazing!


Does it mean we have to drink 64 oz liquid per day? NO! that would be rediculous (unless you are a salt sucker;))) We have multiple ways to get it: Through Meals, such as vegetables (salads), meat, chicken, fish, soups (more of Asian thing I believe) and snack foods, such as fruits. This part accounts for roughly 24-32 oz or 40-50%.

The rest?....we get it from drinks, such as alcohol, wine, beer, coffee, tea, juices, etc. If you stay in bath tub or water 5 hours a day, you need to count that as well.

I have seen and heard so many people who have or had kidney stones...uhhh..very very painful!!! I had a small one before (you gonna experience everything in life,including the bad ones. That's my attitude! but make sure you know how to fix it if happens!!;)).

My father, a retired doctor, asked me to drink loads of liquid, jump jump jump, upside down...every day (yeah...it's hard to get some kidney stones-right time, right methods and right spots! it's even harder to get rid of them!!) well, that helps me do yoga! Not a bad treatment, if the stone is gone. Thanks to my father (not god this time), it's all gone now!!

My next question is: How much tea should I drink per day? Or how much tea do you drink per day?

Weight loss-Stevia vs Sugar?

What's stevia? Stevia, is a plant. Also called sweet leaf, it originates from South America. It tastes sweet, but slightly different than sugar, and has a long lasting after taste.

Benefit of Stevia:
1. NO calories. (but that does not mean you can eat tons of them, in my opinion)
2. Approved by FDA as food addictive in 2008. It is commonly used by diabetes as a sugar substitute because it has no impact on blood sugar level. The herb is sold in some South American countries to aid diabetics and hypoglycemics, Candidiasis. The plant has been used widly in Japan for decades.
3. NO worries about teeth cavities (but that's a bad news for dentists, sorry)

dot dot dot....

How much more should I say? Sounds good enough to use it often, right? That's not the end of the story.

I met a lady at a tea tasting event who told me, you should drink tea with sugar, not stevia. She said her nutritionist told her that when people drink sugar sweetened beverage, they are cautious about calories. So they drink less. When people drink beverage sweetened by stevia, they intend to drink more because they know stevia has zero calory. The result is people can gain weight!


I get the point: suppose we drink 1 gallon of sugar sweetened tea per day. if we switch to stevia, according to the nutritionist's theory, we will intend to drink 2 gallons? Does the real world really work that way? if that's the case, we need to make sure to install a rubber stomach to hold that much water/food! Everybody would walk like a pregnant woman.

I found her nutrionist's advice is amusing! what do you think? have you tried Stevia? Do you like the taste?

TGI Friday....a FUN "veggie" dog

I found this picture when I surf online...how cute the puppy looks like. The title for this picture is "Almost Have"....Yes, Friday is here....This picture was taken by Attila Labodi

The dog must be a veggie dog who eats cookies!;))))

Meet with Master of Wine Jennifer Simonetti-Bryan

Jennifer Simonetti-Bryan is a Master of Wine, one of the 4 women MW (Master of Wine)in the US. And I'm a Chinese Tea master. What could happen if we ever meet?!!!!

And we did!!!

It was June 10th and we finally met in person in NYC!! It was truely exciting and fun fun fun!! She is stunningly beautiful, like a movie star (isn't she), has a great personality and kind heart!! I joked with her that she does not look like someone who drinks a lot of wine;))) She then explained to me that she spits when tasting. This is exactly the same with tea. When testing various teas, I normally spit. Otherwise, it's a hell load of teas I have to drink every day;)

Guess what we had for drink when we met? Mint TEA!!!

When we started talking, we found we spoke each other's languages!!! There are so many similaries between wine and tea!! They are all made from certain plants (tea bushes and grapes), which means geographic locations play a vital role in their quality! Even the vocabularies we use are very similar, such as fermentation, cultivar, etc

In other words, if you know how to differentiate wines, you will learn how to enjoy tea like a pro very quickly because the two drinks have so much in common!!

Jennifer offers Wine tasting classes at the Astor Center in NYC and also provides consulting services to wine professionals.

Check her websites out:
www.jennifersimonetti.com

www.everydaywineguide.com

Jennifer can also be found on Twitter:@JediWineMaster