By Ober Khok
I LIKE the flavor of green tea as it gives me a psychological boost, the feeling that I am drinking a brew considered to be a boon to health.
It is especially soothing when taken early in the morning and in the evening just after the news and all its gory reports. You commit mortal sin if you add milk or lemon, and sugar to green tea, just because sugar pleases the tongue. It’s like adding sweet white chocolate to tomato-cheese macaroni casserole.
Whenever I drink green tea I imagine a bamboo forest with the breeze combing through the leaves. When I inhale the steam coming from green tea, I smell freshness and a sense of renewal.
Green tea retains its mossy fragrance and grassy taste even after it undergoes the cold process.
The Wikipedia said that fresh tea leaves are steamed to make them soft and pliable, and to make it retain its green color. The leaves turn brown when it undergoes fermentation. Then the leaves are “rolled into tiny pellets, and dried in a wok or in open air” in a single layer. The tea is ready when the leaves become dry and crisp.
Lately, many friends of mine have stirred away from their daily coffee fix, and have switched to green tea over other types of tea.
The Chinese and Japanese have been drinking green tea for many centuries, partly because they believe it has health benefits. I don’t bet my life on these benefits—wow, believed to prevent cancer, arthritis and hypertension—but I like it for its taste. That’s all.
I read an article a few years ago, saying that if you are avoiding caffeine and taking green tea because you think it does not contain this stimulant, you are wrong.
The Medicinal Food news reported that “green tea, unless it is decaffeinated, also contains caffeine.” It is the length of infusion with hot water that matters, the report said.
“The number of time you use the green tea leaves can greatly reduce your caffeine intake. Experiments have shown that tea after a first five-minute brew contains 32 mg caffeine. But if the same leaves are then used for a second and then a third five-minute brew, the caffeine drops to 12 mg and then 4 mg.”
I showed this information to my Uncle Gustav who gets satisfaction from over-brewing his green tea and even squeezing the tea bag to get the last drop.
He turned as green as his morning brew. “Is that so?” he asked, shocked, his voice like sandpaper on metal.
“It is. So now you believe me when I say we should not mistreat our tea?”
The news source noted that brewed coffee has 40 mg of caffeine while green tea (loose leaves), 32 mg; espresso, 212 mg; instant, 26 mg; coffee liqueur (63 proof), 26 mg; and black tea (bag), 33 mg.
“Those are chilling figures,” my uncle reacted in disfelief. “I will do my own research, Ober.”
Why do we love caffeine so much? You know, it’s one of the bigger ingredients in energy drinks.
Medicinal Food news reported that caffeine “stimulates the central nervous system, the cardiac muscle, and the respiratory system.” In plain English, it means it perks up your spine, makes your heart do a rock song, and makes your lungs work faster. It makes superheroes out of us.
It’s no brainer why we dig this drink. “Signs of over-consumption of caffeine include irritability, sleeplessness, irregular heartbeat, dizziness, vomiting, diarrhea, headache, or loss of appetite,” the source said.
The last point could be misconstrued as good. I mean, who doesn’t want to lose some weight (women especially)? But then that could be counter-productive. Lack of sleep creates dark circles under the eyes.
I’ve always believed in the truth that anything in excess is not good. Let’s drink 10-minute green tea to that.
Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on March 12, 2011.
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