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SYSK Selects: How Tea Works · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello friends, it's Chuck here on a Saturday. I just
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: had my bowl of cereal, I just watched my morning cartoons,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: and now I'm slogging into the studio to intro my
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: pick for the Saturday select from March twelve, two fifteen.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: How Tea Works? It was a really good one. Who
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: didn't like tea? Right? Give it a listen. Welcome to
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Stuff you should know, a production of My Heart Radios
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant Jerry in Studio one. A.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: You just pointed us out to each other as if
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: I was going to be like, who it was Jerry?
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: And who was Jerry? So I'm Chuck here Chuck, Okay,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: that's Jerry, all right. I was a little confused, right there,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: I got you. Here's a lady. I'm a dude. All right.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Now that we have that sort of let's talk tea. Uh,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: or we could change the name of the podcast to
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: two dudes and a lady. Yeah, we could. Maybe that'll
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: be our side cast where we talk about this podcast.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Sidecast that's right Coined by Josh Clark, Circond two thous
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: so now you own that. I just put it on wax.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Pretty pretty sweet, pretty slick. Yeah, so chuck. Yeah. Have
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: you ever drank tea? I just stuff finished up some
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: green tea. Are you still a green tea drinker? Yeah?
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: I mean I like all kinds of tea, but I
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: uh drank some green because I was studying for this
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: and it just was like, yeah, sure, you used to
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: drink it by like the mini picture full. Yeah. I
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: used to drink it cold. Yeah, Um, you don't need that.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: I had this hot. Well it is wintertime. Yeah. Do
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: you like tea? I like green tea. Yeah, I like
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: green tea the most. Um. I like chilled green tea.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: I don't like woolong, which until I guess today or yesterday,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: I thought woo long did you know it was woolong?
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: I had no idea and I've never had it I have.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: It's very woody. It's almost like roots, like you put
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: some roots in some water, um, warm water, seep for
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: a while, or steep steep. I don't know why I
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: always have trouble with that. It's clearly steep seep is different. Yeah,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: it's a different word. But I from my whole life
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: of confused steep and seep when it comes really yeah. Interesting.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Uh anyway, Wolong not the biggest fan. I like green
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: tea and I like it chilled black teeth. I'm not
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: really big on. Yeah. I like a good English breakfast tea.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Love it? Do you or Earl Gray? You like those two?
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Sure man? Little little cream, little sugar. Yeah. And then
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: of course you've got your herbal teas like I don't
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: like this. Are you don't know? I've been drinking celestial
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: seasonings tension tamer. So that's actually right. Well no, well
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: that was the big reveal that I was working up too.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: That's just plodding along. But now that you've rushed me,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: I will agree with you. No, not all those are
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: t right, that those aren't. Here's the really big reveal,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: which okay, English breakfast tea, green tea, woo loong uh,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: white tea. Remember that snap a lad where that old
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: man shows the backpacker dude, Oh, it's like a snap
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: of white tea and he goes, goes, we pretty up
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: to the top, and it's like that's it and he goes,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: that's it. That's white ta Okay. All of those are
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: the same thing. They're all the same. They come from
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: the same plant. One plant. Did you know that? Um?
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: I did not know that until I've researched. It's a
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Chamelia sentensis. Is the tea plant, the tea bushes. Uh.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: And now we have to say there are different varieties
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: of Chamelea sentensus sea sentensus is what those in the
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: no call it. Uh, well, horticulturists, um. But the plant itself,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: there's one species of tea plant. And that's what it's
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: That's what it all comes from. It's how the tea
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: is made. That that UM explains, explains the differences. And
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: then you know, you add some stuff like apparently earl
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: gray has the essential oil of the bergamot orange mixed in,
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: which is nice, but that's still t It is t yes,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: it's just got something added to it. Now, if you
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: just took bergamot orange, dried it out, put it in
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: a tea bag and sold it as herbal tea as
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: like orange dream, we wouldn't have tea. The tension tamer.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: It's not tea, it's a It's a dried herb that
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: you steep or steep depending on your preference in warm water. Yeah,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: it's a steeped hot beverage. Beverage. That's a good way
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: of saying it, because it's exactly what it is. So
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: the cats out of the bag, which means, now that
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: we've done that, we have to explain everything there is
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: to know about tea That is right, Uh, And I
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: guess there's no better place to start then the in
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: b C. Of course, and the Emperor of China UM.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: No one knows if this story is true. Of course,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: it's a pretty good story though. But it's a good
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: story because we don't know the exact origin of tea UM.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: It's been around for a long time. But some people
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: say Chinese Emperor Shin nung Um, who ruled about five
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: thousand years ago, was traveling through China and he was
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: big into sanitation. Yeah, like boil your water kind of sanitation.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: This is thousands of years before germ theory. Yeah, totally,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: which is a couple years old. I wonder what led
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: him to that conclusion which was spot on, you know,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know. We're getting the way
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: back for you and ask him. Yeah, that's right. Okay,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: it's a lot of fuel for that one question, but
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: it's a pretty good question, because yeah, you're you're right,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: it's spot on. How how do you know that boiling
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: water kills germs if you don't know what germs are exactly?
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Uh So he was traveling through China and reportedly stopped
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: to rest and was preparing some boiled water, some delicious
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: boil water, and a gust of wind blew some leaves
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: from a bush into the water, changing the color, and
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: he was like, hey, this is a different color. Now
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: let me try it. Well, and it's delicious. He was
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: renowned as a scientist. Yeah, sure, he was definitely at
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: the very least securiut fella um, and yeah, he decided
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: to try it. He's like, different colored boiled water. Of course,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: I'm going to try that and see what it's like.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: I bet he had his right hand try it first,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: and then five minutes later was like okay, yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: He didn't die. I think that's what all the fat
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: cats did back then. Sure. Um, So it turns out
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: that that was debris detritus from the Camelia sinensis. He
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: was born. He was born in China. No one knows
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: that that story is true. I think, like you said, um,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: but it's a pretty great story. And since we don't
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: know the true origin, ty, why not. Yeah, I'll go
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: with that. It's not that far fetched. When the Western
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Zo dynasty was around, the tea was a religious offering
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: and during the Han dynasty it was pretty limited, so
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: it was safe for royalty. Um. By the time the
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Tang dynasty came around, which was six six eighteen to
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: nine oh seven, they found a bunch, uh, they found
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: discovered a lot of more tea plants. And that ironic
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: that tea became established during the Tang dynasty. Yeah, that's
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: pretty funny, um, because tang is the opposite of tea, right, Yeah,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: I guess some ways. I mean, they're both water based,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: so probably not the opposite. I don't know, it would
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: be the opposite of tea. Um. So, like I said,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: they found a bunch more plants in the Tang dynasty,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: and the Chinese government actually said, you know what, everyone
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: should drink tea because it's good for you and so,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: and we can make money off of it of course. Uh.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: And then from the Tang dynasty it spread to Japan
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: by priests who were studying in China. They also brought
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: Buddhism at the same time. Both of them took root.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: The Japanese said we like this, let's try making some
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: other stuff out of it, and that they actually created
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: the tea ceremony, which is a big deal in Japan
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: still to this day. Have you taken part in one
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: of those? I have not. You mean took um some
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: classes when she taught in Japan yours back, Um. But
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: apparently it's just one of these things where you you're
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: just constantly learning. It's it's never You're never like I'm
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: a I'm a master at t You're you're always learning more.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: You're always trying to be perfect. And the thing that's
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: so elusive about it is it's supposed to be utterly simple. Yeah,
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: it's it's a it's elaborate, but the steps are meant
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: to be simple, like it's a very simple plane form
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: thing like the sushi rice. It's like, uh, right, why
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: are the Japanese obsessed with doing things really well? They
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: really are that they don't phone it in right, um.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: But the the whole thing behind the tea ceremony and
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: the Japanese adoption of it is that there's this idea
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: that t share sitting down and sharing ceremonially and in
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: a ritually, a ritual manner. A cup of tea can
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: bring peace between people. Yeah, what's the the tea ceremony?
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Cho you there's a there's a saying, there's another saying. Yeah,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: it's a cup of tea with me ichi go ichi
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: go ichi e one time, one meeting, which is the
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: idea that every encounter is unique and can't be duplicated.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Very nice, That is nice. Um. So in Europe, you know,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of people associate with tea. Of
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: course with England and Europe, the UK and Britain took
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: a little while though all those places there was a lag. Yeah,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: there was. We're in like the seventeenth century now, and
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: the Portuguese were the first people to uh not imports tea,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: but drink tea in England. Yeah, they were. They were
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: trading in the East Indies specifically Java, yes, and the Dutch.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: If you'll remember from did we ever do a full
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: nutmeg episode? I think we did right cinnamon too, that
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: this all this showed up back then in the seventeenth
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: century in the East Indies around Indonesia, Java. Um, the
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Portuguese just had the place on lockdown until the Dutch
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: came in and we're like, we're taken over. One of
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: the things that came out of that was the import
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: or the introduction of tea to Europe through the Dutch. Yeah,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: they pretty much horned in on their trading routes and
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: brought tea to Holland from China, and then from Holland,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: of course it spread throughout Europe. Uh. And I think
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: the King of England at one point married a Portuguese
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: uh woman and a princess, Yeah, princess that had a
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: lot to do with it too. Of course, Charles the
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: second did married Catherine of Braganza, who was, it says
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: in this article, a t addict and she was like,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: let's drink some tea, man, And uh, all of Great
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Britain kind of followed suit because back then, once a
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: princess did something, you know, everybody wanted to do that. Yeah,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: even if she was a fiend of some sort, like
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: a caffeine fiend. Um. So the end of the East
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: India Company's monopoly on trade in China, which happened in
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: eighteen thirty four, was a really big deal because basically
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: they you know, everything was coming from China until then,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: and then at that point the East India Company said Hey,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: we could grow our own tea in India and we're
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: gonna start doing it. Uh. And they did and by
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: eighteen thirty nine they had enough cultivation going on, um
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: that they had the first auction of a psamte in Britain,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: which is a big deal. That's the variety that they
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: used to make Darjeeling tea. Oh is it? And I
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: think their number two in production today right? Yeah? India, China,
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Kenya and Sri lank are the big four tea producers
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: that Indonesia. I think it's fifth and they're like, can't
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: you just say top five? Right? We don't produce well,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: they do produce a lot, but not nearly as much U.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: The other thing too that happened during that the monopoly
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: was um the t Clipper was born, which is pretty neat.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: When the company had the monopoly, there was basically no
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: rush to get it there because they had the monopoly, Like,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: you'll get the tea when you will sail over there
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: and I'll be good. Have you ever heard of slow
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: boat to China? Is that where it came from? I
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: could have what about high Road to China with your
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: boy Tom Selleck well, oh yeah, remember that movie. I
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: never saw it. Yeah, it wasn't very good. That was
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: his brief foray into a major motion pictures. Didn't he
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: play like the King of Spain in one of the
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Columbus pictures back in the early nineties? I think I
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: remember that. What was that either or Columbus? Yeah, I
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: can't remember. So the t clipper, yes, uh, there was
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: no rush, but until when that monopoly ended, it was
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: basically like the fastest boat to get there, the fastest
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: ship will be the one that gets the sail. So
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: they started making these uh these new ships that were
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: had huge sails and tall masts could go a lot faster,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: and it started the era of the tea clipper races. Um. Basically,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: you would leave the Canton River in China, go down
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: the China Sea, across the Indian Ocean, slink around the
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: Cape of Good Hope, up the Atlantic past the his
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Oars and into the English Channel. Then you were towed
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: up the River Thames by a tug boat and the
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: first boat to throw their their load up on the
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: docks would be the winner, which is pretty neat until
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: they built the Sues Canal and then it was like
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: the well, and it took all the fun out of that.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: It sounds like a pretty great race though, Yeah it was. Yeah,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: I wonder how long that took. I think they were
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: just holl And but the whole time too. Yeah, but
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: even still had to take weeks, you know. I would
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: think so, um and this we should say, this is
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: the that was the mid nineteenth century. Um, the we
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: would be remissed to do an episode on tea and
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: not mention the Boston Tea Party, which was thing everybody
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: knows about the Boston Tea Party. What I didn't realize
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: is that the British Royalty, the British Crown, still, even
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: after losing the colonies in part over t taxes, UH,
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: still continue to just tax the heck out of tea
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: for for at least a decade afterward before they finally
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: relented and started to like drastically reduce it in the
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: face of tons and tons of piracy and smuggling. Apparently,
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: in the late eighteenth century, UH seven million pounds of
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: tea were smuggled into Britain and five million pounds were
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: legally imported, so the smuggling there was more smuggled tea
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: than legal tea in Great Britain in the late eighteenth century. Right,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: But apparently despite all this, it wasn't until nineteen sixty
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: four that the Brits, the British government finally said, you
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: know what, We're gonna stop fiddling with the t tax
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: and just not tax tea any When was this nineteen sixties? Yeah,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: nine sixty Yeah, tea. It's huge in Britain. Yeah. And
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: at this point in the late nineteenth century is when
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: I think the average Britton was consuming about six pounds
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: a year per person. It's a lot of tea. Yeah,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: I wonder what that would be today. I meant to
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: look that up. Is that what harvest or dry harvest
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: or man? Is that a seeped tea bag? It's not seeped.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: That's a lot of tea. Yeah, that is a lot
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: of man. So, Chuck, we got the history under our belt.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: We'll move into how tea is actually made after this. Okay, buddy,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: we were talking about the history, and then before that
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: we mentioned that there were four main types of tea, green, black, woolong,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: wu tang and white tea. I just don't understand how
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: O O l O n g is woolong. It's oolong
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: I guess the w is both. It's invisible but not silent,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: you know. And like we said, all those teas come
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: from Camelia senensis. Uh, And there's different varieties of them,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: like the assam makes star jealing. Um. But the way
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: that you process the leaves is where the differences come about. Right,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: that's right. What's interesting to me is all t almost
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: all tea in the whole wide world is harvested by hand. Yeah,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: like uh, I think, Um, what was the spice we
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: were talking about? Saffron? Saffron? Yeah, I think nut make too.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: When did we talk about saffron? I think I mentioned
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: it in the Cinnamon podcast. It's expensive because it can
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: only begin harvested and anytime you're involving p bowl, it's
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: gonna cost more than some big, stupid machine that can
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: do tons of it at once. And that is certainly
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: the case with tea because there are only a couple
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: of harvest a year, the first flush in the early spring,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: the second flush in the summer. And they they really
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: care for the tea plant, they pick and prune at
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: them year round, but they only choose what a couple
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: of leaves from each plant. When they're actually harvesting. Yeah,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: so they they're the top two leaves and the bud
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: in between that's your tea. Everything else is just basically
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: the home for the tea that's harvested, like the rest
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: of the plant. Yeah, this huge, enormous like plant bullush
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: shrub is just there to like sprout out these little
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: bits and the little sprouts or the tea that we drink.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: It's amazing. And that's all the tea. That's the oolong,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: that's the black tea, that's the white tea, that's the
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: green tea. That's all of them. It's from these shrubs,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: just the top two little white leaves in the bud,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: that's right. And from there, once they're picked by and uh,
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: they are taken to the factory which is on the
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: plantation because uh, something starts happening as soon as you
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: pick it, and that's called oxidation. And oxidation needs to
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: be very controlled because it's not necessarily a bad thing,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: because it actually is partially why you get certain varieties
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: of T. Right. Yeah, depending on the kind of T
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: you want, you either want oxidation or you want to
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: prevent oxidation. And we should probably say oxidation basically is
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: when um any kind of molecule, but specifically an oxygen
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: molecule UM or O two uh interacts with something like
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: um the metal in a car, or the inside of
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: an apple, the leaf off of a T shrub. Um.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: Once the oxygen interacts with it, it starts a chain
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: reaction inside where these oxygen molecules that have two pair
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: or two unstable or unpaired electrons. Once the oxygen interacts
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: with some other atoms in the cells of these things,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: it robs those atoms of their electrons right because it
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: wants to pair up. And when it does this, it
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: starts the process of oxidation. Yeah, which is actually John
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: Fuller or old Buddy wrote this one UH and he
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: was a big T guy. Big imagine he still is. UM.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: He's characterized it is actually burning it. So like when
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: you eat your apple bite and you go to your
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: desk and you leave it there, and then you go
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: to the bathroom for an hour or so, you come back.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: The reason your apple is brown now is because you've
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: exposed that inside to the to the O two and
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: it's burning it. Yeah. Because normally the apple, the inside
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: of the apple is protected from the oxygen in the
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: air we breathe in the atmosphere by the skin. Once
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: you puncture the skin, when you break the skin, it's
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: exposed to oxygen and that process of oxidation takes place.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: The same thing happens with a leaf from a t shrub.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: When it's attached to the shrub, it's protected from the
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: outside air. Once you pluck it from there, and especially
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: once you like break it or tear it apart or
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: do something with it, it's exposed to that air and
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: oxidation takes place and it withers in very much the
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: same way that UM, a leaf on a tree, a
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: dead leaf in the fall withers and changes color. That's
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: oxidation as well. Yeah, the same, like you said to
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: the same thing like that can happen to your car
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: if you don't get that true code. Yeah, that's why
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: you pay thousands and thousands of dollars more the dealership
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: for that true that's right. Uh. Black tea is the
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: leader of all te s accounts for about production and uh,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: like you said, the Earl Gray or the English breakfast tea,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: that's black tea. Um, and it's not always I mean
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: doesn't necessarily look black. It's kind of a reddish brown
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: when when you seep it. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I'm
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: not gonna help out your problem, am I. And then no,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna confuse you. I thought I might knock
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: it out today, but now it's gotten worse. I think.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: Actually you've also said too long a couple of times. Yeah,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: that's kind of by choice. Okay. Um, So with black
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: tea in particular, that's like the um, the oxidation master.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: That's right, that's the one you want oxidation for. Uh
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: So with the actual process of making tea, of processing
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: tea leaves into black tea, you're actually inviting oxidation. Um,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: and you're doing that. Well, you want to talk about
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: how you how you make black tea? Yeah, it's a
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: it's a five step process. I mean, there's a couple
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: of methods, but they both include generally these five steps.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Yet one is by robot and the other is by yeah,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: human hand pretty much the Orthodox method and the CTC
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: or the cut, tear, curl method, which sounds cool, but
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: it's not, um because Orthodox is you know, by hand, sure,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: which means it's better. And all of this again is
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: it takes place in the factory, on the plant and grounds,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: after the human hands have harvested the tea leaves and
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: brought them to the factory a couple of fields over. Okay,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: the first step is withering, and that's when you're going
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: to spread it out and let them witherr Like we
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: were talking about with the leaf that falls, it's just
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: basically losing moisture. Yes, After that, you've got rolling where
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: if you're using the orthodox method, the human hand method,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: you're actually rolling out and pressing the leaves so that
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: you're kind of pressing the moisture out, but you're also
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: simultaneously pressing some of the oils, those beneficial oils inside
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: the tea leaf out so that they stick to the
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: outside of the leaf so they're kind of retained and dehydrated. Yeah,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: and if if you're doing the hand method, you it's
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: a gentle process. You're trying not to break the leaf.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: With the CTC method, they're just chopping it up, and
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: you know, because it's a big dumb machine, right and
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: with with say other types of tea, you wouldn't use
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: that method because when you do chop it up, you're
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: posing it to oxidation even more, right, you're right, which
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: is part of the part of the process that's Actually
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: the third step is oxidation. So after the leads are
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: either pressed by the orthodox method or cut by robots,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: it's left out in a kind of a damp, cool
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: space to basically oxidize even further to turn copper, turn
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: brown whither and then lose the rest of their moisture.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: That's right, which is a good thing in the case
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: of black tea. Yes, from here, you're gonna dry it
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: out with some hot air, and the color is going
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: to change even more, uh, from that copper that came
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: from the green. And now you've got your brown and
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: your black color and going on. And then you put
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: the leaves by size and by quality, or if it's
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: going to become say bag tea or something, it's chopped
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: up almost into like a powder ye kind of just
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: little tiny bits and then bagged and all that stuff.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: But if it's just loose leaf, then it's sorted by
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: by size and quality. That's right. Then you're gonna pay
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: more for it. Yeah, And that's black tea, And that's
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: the tea produced in the world goes through that process,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: either by human hand or by robot hand. Green tea
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: is next, and that, like we said a million times,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: is from the same plant. So cool. It is very cool.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: But basically what happens here is it's pretty much the
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: same process, but you're just not oxidizing it as long
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: because you're going to steam it. Or I didn't know this.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: You could pan fright, I guess if you're just growing
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: your own tea and doing it in your house. Uh,
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: you just saw Chef, right man. That was a good movie.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: He's very good movie, way better than Birdman. The only
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: thing I didn't like a spoiler yeah about Chef was
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: the whole the whole social media. I thought, oh, yeah,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: that was like Almo, a little weird underwritten by Twitter.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah it didn't. It was a little weird. I thought
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: it was just strange that they're like willing to date
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: the movie totally that much. Exactly what did you go
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: see it in tang years You're gonna be like, this
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: is so two thousand and fourteen. Yeah. I thought it
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: was not necessary either. But anyway, good movie. It was
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: a great movie, and I thought it's still fit. It's
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: just thinking ten years down the road, it's going to
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: be odd like the movies that talk about my Space. Yeah,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: you sad sad movies. Um, but where were we we
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: were drying out, we were well, you were steaming, you
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: were saying, and this is the point of steaming. Is
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: it stops oxidation? Yeah, and keeps it green, hence the
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: name green tea. And it's not just the um the
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: tea leaves themselves are green or greenish they're supposed to be,
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: but also it imparts a greenish hue to the actual
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: brood tea as well. Um. And the way that the
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: green from the original green color of the leaves is
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: is kept as from preventing oxidation. And that's that's done
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: by steaming. And I looked everywhere to see how steaming
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: prevented oxidation. I couldn't find it. I think it's one
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: of those things where people are just like, yep, it
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: does it. Everyone's content to basically stop right there. And
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: I'm like, no, how And I tried to reword at
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: a couple of different ways, and I'm like, okay, how
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: does heat prevent oxidation? Couldn't find that either, But apparently
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: that's what it does. So I don't know if it
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: seals the cells off, maybe poterizes them somehow, and it
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: prevents the oxygen from getting to it. We'll hear from someone. Yeah,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: if you know how steam prevents oxidation, please let us know.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: But as far as as far as we can tell,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: it actually does, that's right. And uh, we should point
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: out here that it's there can be a range in hugh. Um,
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: there can be a yellowishue sometimes. And there's actually something
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: I didn't know about that you told me about yellow tea. Yeah,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: so supposedly, um, the steaming process can go a little awry,
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: or it used to back in the day more frequently. Yeah,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: and it produces another um type of te Uh it's
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: called yellow tea. And that's like sold. You can get
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: it now. I don't know. I'm sure there's some specialty
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: store that sells yellow tea. Yeah, yeah, um, alright, So
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: basically at this point, green tea is um. After it's
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: frozen in time and staying green. The processes about ever
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: young it is, and it's the process from there is
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: the same as with black tea pretty much. Yeah, you're
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: gonna sort it, you're gonna cool it, you can dry
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: it out, you're gonna sort it again and then sort
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: it one more time. A lot of redundancy in creating
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: green tea. And now we're at Woolong or oolong, which
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: is basically like it's kind of like yellow tea. I
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: I don't think they're one and the same, but it's
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: a it's steamed, but it's steamed after the oxidation process
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: has taken place to it to an extent, so it's
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: oxidized but not as much as black tea. And it's
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: steamed but not as early as green tea. So long
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: is between the two. What's crazy is it doesn't taste
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: like black tea or green tea at all. It's definitely
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: its own thing. Still, it's from the same plant. I
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: don't think I've ever had it at all. Yeah, I
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: need to just try something. What all the fuss is about?
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: If you go to like a like a Lawson's, which
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: is a chain of um convenience stores in Japan, Uh,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: strangely enough, Okay, you go in that's a little weird
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: um and pretty much anywhere you can buy like water,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: green tea and Oolong tea like in a cooler, like
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: you can get it everywhere those three things. Uh, and
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: you should try all of them. You have to try
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: long at least once. Yeah, I'll try some tomorrow. Okay.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: That's my that's my dedication. To you, sir. Uh, then
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: you have your white tea and that is very much
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: a specialty tea and somewhat rare, and it is only
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: picked two days out of the year when the buds
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: aren't open yet, and it's um, it's less grassy, it's
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: a little smoother, but it is similar to green tea.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: And it is only been available outside of China for um,
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: not that long, just a few years, right, Snapple has
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: only been making it for a couple of years. Well,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: the well that should date it immediately, um like Twitter
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: dates chef uh. And it was reserved for Chinese nobility
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: because of you know how rare it is. But um,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: now you can get it. And we talked about um
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: other kinds of tea too, like herbal tea again is
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: just basically dried herbs that you steep, just like regular tea.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: Like chai chi is actually tea, that's right, because it's
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: tea black tea mixed with spices like cinnamon and pepper
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: and stuff. So that's still constitutes tea. But like camrameal
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: t it's not really tea. It's a tossane right um.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: And it's just again it's just some dehydrated camerameal flowers
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: that you steep in hot water. Um. Same goes for
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: ruy bus, which is a mouthful, but it means red
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: bush and Afrikaans. That's right. Same with mate, which is
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: not to be confused with macha. No, but we'll talk
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: about macha, right, Yes, let's talk about macha, chuck, because
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: I love the stuff. I had not been Uh, maybe
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: you can call me a macha poser or jumping on
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: the macha bandwagon. Yeah, I in that article you sent
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: it said that like it's the darling of the tea set. Now. Yeah,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: and um, my friend in California p J and l
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: A you've met p J J. He uh he is
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: or was? He may have bailed on it, but he
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: was trying to make his own special Macha green tea
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: and bottle it and sell it. I get what you mean,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: but I don't think he got past the making it
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: at home stage. Well, there's a lot. There's not a
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: lot to it, but there's Again, I think the Japanese
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: taste ceremony is surrounded or surrounds macha. That's what you're
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: preparing is macha and almacha is It's like really really
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: good green tea that's been ground down to a fine
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: powder by hand, which automatically makes it more expensive than
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: any other teas or most other teas. Um. And what
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: you have is this really fine, beautiful green powder and
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: you put like a tea spoon eno it in a
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: bowl or a cup or something like that. Uh, and
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: you're supposed to sift it I think through like a sifter.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, um, just to open it back up again. Sure,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: make it pop. Uh, And then you add some hot
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: water and then you use a whisk to stir it. Yeah,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: and there's UM. I don't think we mentioned that. The
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: other big difference with macha is is that bushes, Uh.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: The bushes are covered twenty days prior to harvests from sunlight.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: And that's the big distinction. And that means it's gonna
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: have a lot more chlorophyll and something called l ponine. Oh,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: that stuff is good. This is the amino acid that um.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: Apparently that's what allows you to feel both um, invigorated
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: and calmed. Yeah. It works in conjunction with caffeine. UM.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: And it's actually capable. It's an amino acid, like you said,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: that is capable of crossing the blood brain barrier, so
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: like when you drink it, it goes right to your brain.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be um converted and metabolized, right,
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: and it's supposed usually has all sorts of cool benefits
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: like um, cognitive enhancement. Um, you're just kind of clear.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: It's just neat stuff. Well, and that's what the macha
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: proponents will tell you, like, have some of this stuff. Man,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: it's like go juice, you'll be clear headed. Take a
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: hint of this um. But macha's there's a couple of forms.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: There's the yasucha and the koicha. There's that the coicha
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: probably kicha koi cha yeah, coicha. Uh, yasucha is thin
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: tea and kicha is thick ty. And the coicha, man,
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: that is something else that is made with half the
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: water twice the macha. Oh that sounds like my kind
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: of macha. Well, they say by the end, by the
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: time you're you're done whisking it, it's gonna be like
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: the texture of paint. So serious macha. Yeah, because mata
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: has like a distinct taste. Oh yeah, I love it.
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: I mean I'll make like uh I get it at
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: the Asian market near my house and I will just
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: add it to my regular green tea, like I'll whisk
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: it up and then just add it there. But it's
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: a suspension. It's not a you're not actually uh, you're
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: drinking the tea leaf. Like if you mix up your
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: match and then leave it there a few hours later,
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: it's gonna be separated. Yeah, So it's a colloid. Is
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: that what that's called? I think so. So I'm not
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: going to repeat that because I'm not positive what the
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: colloid thing is. I believe so like quicksand a colloid
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: is something, yeah, something that's like it's not actually dissolved,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: it's just mixed together. I think you are right. So
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: it's it's a colloid. And um, people proponents will say
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: that it's better for you because when you seep te
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: ice cream, you up. When you sip steep to tea, Um,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: you're only getting h you know, I don't know the percentage,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: but you're only getting some of the benefits of the
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: tea because the tea leaf is still in there with
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: the macha. You're actually ingesting the tea leaves, I see,
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Yeah, and that am goes
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: right past the blood brain barrier and it does. And
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: it's pretty trendy too, because you can now get a
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: restaurants and they'll be like macha sprinkled on a food dish.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: Or have you been to Umi Sushi yet? No? I
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: went to Kraft Azikaya the other night though, So where
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: was is that in Krugs? Yeah? Is it good? It
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: was really good and I actually had a cocktail. I
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: thought about you, because you know I don't oh yeah,
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: you don't drink cocktails that much. It was. It was good.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: It was bourbon and like lemon and ginger and it's
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: thaie spice like one other thing maybe honey. It was
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: pretty tasty bad. It was good. It sounds good, and
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: the food was excellence. It's a little pricey, but it's
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: you know, like when you eat the sushi, it's you
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: can so tell the difference. It just melts in your
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: mouth very very much the same with Umi sushi as well.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: It's just just the quality between that and just about
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: every other sushi you've had, is it's just light years beyond. Yeah,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: it is really evident. When you tasted I had some
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: of the albu coore and it was just like it
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: was literally like melted butter done. I'll bet it so good. Well,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: the point is Umi Sushi makes a green tea Macha
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: souffle with Cremont glaze that actually you me replicated once
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: it was it's amazing. It's amazing. So Macha really goes
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: with a lot of really good stuff. Even though it
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: is trendy, it's still good. It is good, and it's
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: like you said, it's super earthy. It's just I recommend
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: you try it. I like it a lot. So I
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: don't know if I'm getting the good stuff from that
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: Asian market. It's probably the cheap stuff, but it's still tasty.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: I honestly don't know if it's one of those things
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: where like you get what you pay for, if a
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: lot of it is just jacked up price because it
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: is much or what. I don't know. Now this stuff
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: is pretty inexpensive that I get actually for what for
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: the amount you're getting, it's really not that cheap now
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: that I think about it. Yeah, okay, Yeah, it's a
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: little canister of it. Yeah, it's pretty small. You're probably
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: paying what you should be, right. Uh. We talked a
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: little bit about the blood brain bear. You're well, we'll
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: talk more about the health benefits a t right after this. So, Chuck,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the health benefits, as I
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: said before the break, but first let's talk about how
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: to prepare tea. Well, yeah, there's a couple of ways,
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: depending on what you're you're dealing with. You can either
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: be a loose leaf person or a bagged tea person.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: And I got the impression from this, Like you said,
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: Fuller was a t guy, and he he did a
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: very good job of trying to reserve judgment. But if
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: I remember correctly, he was a loose leaf guy, and
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: it comes through in this um this article. The loose
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: leaf is better. Yeah, he had a special little unit
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: there where you pour the water in and it kept
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: the loose leaf separate. But it was all contained in
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: one like cup that you screw it lit on or something. Yeah,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: you can get those or you can just do There's
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: all sorts of equipment you can have to make your tea,
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: you know. So the if you're preparing tea in a bag,
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: you just pop it in some hot water. Well no,
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: not necessarily depends on the kind of tea for what
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: temperature you want your water to be. And I didn't
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: know this Black tea is the only one where you
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: want it boiling at two hundred degrees. Wou Long you're
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: gonna um is the next and that's about one nine,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: which is close to boiling. Yeah, or you know you
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: just use your finger to determine whether it's degrees. Uh,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: Green and white tea, Um, it's just steaming water. It's
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: only about a hundred and seventy degrees. And um, you're
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: black tea. I'm sorry. Black and White take the longest
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: to seep and steep four and a half to five minutes. Um,
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: Woo Long is about three to four. And green tea, Man,
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: you can get that stuff going in thirty seconds. Boom,
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: and you're drinking it. My tension tamer takes seven minutes
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: to steep. It says on the box what it does
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: it Can you tell the difference to tame your tension? Yeah,
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: I actually can. That's good. It's pretty neat. I can't
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: remember what's in it, but it talks about the active
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: ingredient whatever the dried herb is. But um, with with
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: the difference between bag tea and loose leaf tea has
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: a lot to do with the benefits from it, right,
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: So with the CTC method, which again of the world's
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: te um A lot of that undergoes the C t
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: C method because it's black tea, right, But you get
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: like this powdery, chopped up, little bitty substance and it's
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: put into a bag and it forms a little clump
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: and water doesn't circulate as well. The benefit of um
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: loose leaf tea is that um, the water steeps through
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: or yeah, steeps through uh and circulates amongst the tea
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: leaves more like it seeps through man. I think you're right,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: But it circulates among the tea leaves, and the tea
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: leaves remember, especially depending on the type of tea, may
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: have been pressed so that the oils are trapped dehydrated
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: on the surface of the tea leaf. You chop those
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: things up and turn them into dust, you're gonna lose
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: a lot of that stuff. But if you have just
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: a dried tea leaf that is dehydrated and has the
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: moisture on the outside, and some water rehydrates that and
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: it just kind of stirs it up and gets into
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: the into the colloid and you drink that, Bam, you're
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: gonna get. If there are health benefits which will explore
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: you're gonna get them. You're more likely to get them
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: from that loose leaf tea than a bag tea, agreed. Uh.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: And then of course you also have your iced tea
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: here in the South, sweet sweet iced tea. Yeah, which
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: is delicious to me. Um, because I grew up here.
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: A lot of people think it's weird. Uh. They had
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: been drinking iced tea before nineteen u but nineteen o
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: four the St. Louis World's Fair was where it really
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: took off because the guy was selling hot tea named
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: Richard block Blockenden. I know what a name I know,
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: and he was even if you pronounced it the other
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: way like bletchened in, it doesn't matter. He sounds like
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: a made up mad magazine staff, right or something. Uh.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: He was serving free tea, but it was hot and
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: it was really hot, and so people were like, no thanks,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: So he made it cold and they said, this is delicious. Well,
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: it was hot out in St. Louis that year, of course,
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: that's summer. That was where I think hot dogs, hamburgers
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: and ice cream cones came from, and apparently iced tea. Man.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: Could you imagine like the world changing after that? In St. Louis.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: Uh so that's where they credit iced tea being born.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: And of course here in the South. Like I said,
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: you dump a cup of sugar in there while you're
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: brewing it and it makes it delicious and syrupy sweet.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: Did you read the Slate article that was linked to
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: in here? I started to Umscott Peacock features in it.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: Who's that? Oh? He used to cook at Watershed. I
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: don't know. He's good, yeah, good cook. And I got
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: as far as page two when they compared the hospitality
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: of offering sweet tea to passing a dub at a
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: fish show, and I was like, no, I'm done at
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: this Slate article forever. What Yeah, what a weird thing
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: to link together. It was that kind of article that's
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: so strange because there's like a thousand hospitable things you
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: can mention, you know, out of nowhere. It's very strange. Um,
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: all right, So finally, Josh, health benefits of tea true
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: or not true? Jury's out, man. So it's possible. If
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: the free radical theory of aging is correct, then it's
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: it's got health benefits and ages. People hear these things
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: a lot, like antioxidants, free radicals, and I don't think
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: a lot of people have an understanding what it is.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: And it's not super complicated. No, it's not. And I
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: will explain it on the um on the basis of
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: you agreeing to doing free radicals episode whole episode. Sure, okay, cool,
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: why would why would you say it like that? I'm
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: just teasing, so chuck with free radicals. Right. We already
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: mentioned oxidation. That's what the free radicals are based on.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: So you breathe oxygen, and that O two molecule has
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: two unpaired electrons, while those electrons want to be paired,
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: So they go into your body and mess with your
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: cells by searching around for other molecules or atoms that
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: they can steal an electron from and repair. Repair, get it,
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: But it's actually the opposite of repairing. It's damaging the
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: cells because those atoms that just got their molecules stripped
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: are now looking for their own electron to pair with, right,
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: and it causes this chain reaction. Well, the whole free
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: radical theory of aging is that this is why we age,
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: This is where disease comes from. This is how our
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: system wears down and breaks down. Cellular destruction. Yeah, and
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: we know that this is a real thing. Sure, Like
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: that really happens the same thing as being exposed to radiation.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: It's a chain reaction where um, molecules and atoms just
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: go around charged looking to neutralize themselves by pairing their
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: electrons or charge electrons. Right, So what T is lousy
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: with is antioxidants. Yeah, and that's what people hear that
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: word a lot and don't even know what it is.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: It Basically it's just going to slow down that oxidation
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: process because they can give up their electrons and still
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: be fine, exactly like vitamin C, catekians which is um
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: which is found in high amounts, and tea, beta carotene, yep,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: vitamin E. Just basically anything that you see is an
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: antioxidant probably is an antioxidant. Again, the jury is just
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: out now based on some recent studies that have found
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: we don't know if this is actually a good thing.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: Well yeah, and when it comes to tea, they people
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: think basically it's a certainly not going to hurt you,
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: right um and be it's probably helping you, but we
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: just don't know exactly how and it's not all super confirmed.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: But drink tea and eat fruits and vegetables because antioxidants
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: we think are pretty good for you, right, because it
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: is correlated with a bunch of health benefits. It's correlated
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: with a reduction in UM uh, diabetes. Uh, It's correlated
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: with a reduction and I think every pressure. Yeah, lung cancer, um,
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: the lowered risk of lung cancer, heart disease, cholesterol, Yeah,
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: just tons of stuff. There's all these correlations out. They've
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: never proven definitively that it's not that people who drink
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: tea tend to also lead healthier lifestyles and that something else.
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: But there's a lot of evidence there that drinking tea
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: does have some sort of healthful benefits or at the
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: very least it's not gonna hurt you. Yeah, when when
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: they say it's they associate it with good health, then
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: that's a pretty good sign that you're doing the right thing.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: They just can't say we can prove this because this
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: does this, yeah, and we know it so. Right. So,
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: if that free radical theory of aging is true, is
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: correct um and antioxidants are actually good for you, then
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: the tea you want to go for a drink is
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: the green tea, because that's the one that has the
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: highest concentrations of catkins, which include epic atkin, epicaate akin galleate,
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: epic Gallo catekin, epic gallo catekin galley, which is known
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: as E G C G and has a lot of
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: gall I thought that was kind of funny. But Black
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: Tea has these, but they actually convert to other stuff.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: They're kind of like dumbed down version. So Green Tea again,
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: it sounds like if you really want health benefits, if
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: there are health benefits, you want to drink loose leaf
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: green tea with ma right with the Mata chaser. Yeah, exactly.
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: He also does contain caffeine. UM. I don't know why
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: people some people think it doesn't or that it contains
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: very little. Uh. I've heard people say that before, like
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: you know, coffee's got caffeine. Ta doesn't have caffeine. Yeah,
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: he's got plenty of caffeine. Um, but generally not as
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: much as as coffee. Um. Coffee contains about eighty two
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: milligrams for a mug, and he's gonna have twenty to sixty,
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: with Black being the strongest at about thirty to forty milligrams,
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: and Green Tea and Woolong between ten and twenty milligrams
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: white tea has like one per cent of a caffeine
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: of cup of coffee. I want to give a shout
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: out to my coffee too. By the way, you know
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: what we're on the cusp of, don't you know? The
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: USDA advising Americans to drink coffee, to d up to
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: five cups. Five cups of coffee a day in America
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: right now drinks less than two a day on average,
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: And the USDA is about to say you need to
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: more than double your coffee consumption because it's not only
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: not bad for you, it's good for you. Finally, everyone
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: is realizing, well, there's a there's a group that's I
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: can't remember the name of it, but it's it's they
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: come up with the guidelines for our diets, and it's
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: this panel that's the Star us exactly. The Star Chamber says, actually,
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: we should start drinking a lot more coffee. And the
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: USDA rarely ignores the advice of the panels. So we're
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: on the cusp of the u s d A saying
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: go drink more coffee everybody, and everyone will be like, Josh,
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: what's right, Yeah, he's only gotta drinking coffee before this announcement.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: Even I don't drink five cups a day on average, really,
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: not anymore, trying to step it up. I have started
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: drinking more coffee lately, actually because we've got get a
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: little machine here. Now that that machine is dynamite. Yeah,
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: what I do is I hit the regular coffee button
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: and then add a shot of espresso, because that makes
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: it the right um size and strength, right, because the
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: regular cup of coffee is it's not even the three
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: quarters of my mug, I know. And it's not even
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: a big mug. Yeah, it's not like have some giant mug. No,
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: that's your tea mug. That's my tea mug. You can
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: punch through a concrete wall with that coffee with the
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: espresso shot on top. Yeah, it's good though. Uh. If
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: you want to know more about tea, go drink some tea.
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: You can also type t T e A into the
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: search bar at how stuff works dot com. Uh. And
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: since I said search bar, it's time for listener, ma'am.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this left handed feedback. And boy did
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: we get a lot of it. I don't know why.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: I guess sometimes when you segment a certain part of
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: the population they're gonna respond, especially one that's been so
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: mistreated for so many, so many years. Yeah, because we
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: heard from a lot of twins and redheads when we
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: covered that stuff. But boy, we heard from a lot
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: of lefties. Um, they're a proud people as it turns out. Hey, guys,
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: I am left handed. When I was little, my mom
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: made me use scissors with only my right hand because
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: of my aunt, my mother's sister, who is also left handed.
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: She's very into sewing, and left handed sewing scissors are
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: crazy expensive. Um, or at least they were back then.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: They're not as bad now. In order to avoid the
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: same ordeal, they thought it would just be better to
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: teach me to cut with my right hand, to never
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: buy the expensive left handed scissors of any kind. I
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: still have mixed feelings about this, but I don't think
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: it harmed me. We did hear from a lot of
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: people who were forced into right handedness from parents or
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: teachers or whatever. Yeah, it was a thing to to.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: That's so bizarre. I think like there was a concerned,
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: widespread effort to erratic hate left handed people. One thing
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: you only mentioned briefly though, in the right hand dominances
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: with things like scissors and spiral bound notebooks. I'd also
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: like to point out less obvious ones, like which side
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: the papers on in bathrooms? Never thought about that. Yeah,
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: it's on the left though in most bathrooms, isn't it?
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: Yes it is, but that makes sense. But I reach
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: over with my right hand to tear the paper. I know,
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: but you're a you're different. Yeah. Um, door knobs, computer
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: mouse or mice, and the smeariness of pins. Um all
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: can cause issues for lefties anyway. Love the podcast, guys,
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: especially ones about people like me. So Sharon and Sani
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: tennessee what else about you can we talk about on
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: a podcast? Yeah, let us know. And if you have
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: something about you that you think would make a cool podcast,
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: a whole podcast, let us know. What If she wrote
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: back and I was like, oh gosh, I love lasagna
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: and I hate dogs, and I drive the dots and
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: drive a dots and do a podcast on that on
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: the dots and dots and drivers. Uh well yeah, let
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: us know, Sharon right? It was Sharon right, share on
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: and if and other people out there who aren't sharing,
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: let us know too. If you have any ideas, you
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: can tweet to us at s y s k podcast.
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: You can post on Facebook, dot com Slade Stuff you
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: Should Know. You can send us an email to stuff
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: Podcast at how stuff Works dot com, and you can
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: join us at our home on the web. Stuff you
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: Should Know dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 51:44
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