Wonders of Tea

It’s a regular question here at WoT and elsewhere on the old interweb – How is tea decaffeinated?

Well here’s the answer and I think you’ll be quite suprised.

Tea can be decaffeinated in a number of ways although all require use of powerful solvents – even the so-called “natural” method.

1. Ethyl Acetate
Often claimed to be a natural decaffeination process as this solvent occurs naturally in the environment although I’m sure you can tell from the name that being natural doesn’t necessarily mean ‘nice’ and ‘friendly’.  So the tea leaves are washed in this solvent which dissolves the caffeine in the leaves and flushes it out.  When caffeine is seperated from its carrier – in this case tea – it forms a solid white bitter-tasting powder.

2. Methyline Chloride
The tea is first softened in heated water to loosen the bonds before being washed with this solvent which binds to the caffeine and draws it out of the leaves.  However, this initial water processing can cause the loss of many of the flavours and oils so the leaves are re-washed in this solvent to re-introduce those oils.

In Conclusion
I don’t care if you’re heart is on its last legs – you can’t possibly justify doing this to tea.  Washing it in anything besides water ready for a drink is tantamount to heresy.  So please, please, please go caffeinated – go natural!

facts, myths health, science

Bald Mice Cured by Tea?

Well as much as I’d like to believe it I don’t think I’ll grab this tea-based baldness cure off eBay.
It did make me look a bit further into it and it looks like it MAY do something – though not much! I read over at the Hair Loss Buddy blog that:

There are two types of this enzyme, cunningly named Type I and Type II. The Type II enzyme is the hair killing critter, yet a recent study showed that green tea only blocked the Type I enzyme.

Absolutely gutted – but still! It just goes to show that tea does have a hell of a lot of different properties and we’re still discovering things it can do to this day.
Anyway – if anyone does have a cure for baldness then don’t hesitate to get in touch (for the mouse of course!

facts, health, myths health

For the tea-drinkers of old reading tea leaves was as natural as drinking the tea itself. However, since the advent of teabags the tradition has declined so now they’re rarely ever seen, nevermind interpreted.

So I’ve decided to give you all the oppurtunity to learn by pointing you in the direction of a good article on tea leaf reading at SoYouWanna.

facts, life, myths