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How Tea Works · Stuff You Should Know

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