Nano technology in teas

I read the whole thing in Chinese. It's strange. Never heard of anything like it before. The black tea undergoes wodui fermentation. Then the tea is reprocessed using nanotechnology to become selenium enriched. At the bottom it says some tea growing regions have soils naturally rich in selenium. That is then abosorbed into the tea. But only 10% of that selenium ends up in the tea infusion that you drink; meaning 90% is wasted. So they came up with a way of using nanotechnology to help the tea growing in the selenium rich area to be better expressed in the tea. According to the text, selenium has a lot of benefit to the human body.

Still, it's very strange. Without understanding the process fully, I wouldn't try it. Doesn't seem natural. If you wanted selenium, since it's already naturally present in the leaves, why not just grind it into powder and then infuse the powder in hot water?

Or maybe their "nanotechnology" process is exactly to grind the leaves into fine particle size, which you then infuse in hot water, meaning you get full benefit from the selenium in the leaves, since you also then consume the leaf?

I just read the other page about nanotechnology processing. They are using it with Chinese herbal medicine to increase the effectiveness, and even to produce new medicinal effects from herbs by reducing particle size the the nano level. This kind of medicine could then be formulated into injections, tablet form, etc.

Navigating to the page on types of nano teas, they look like instant tea packets And that's exactly what they are. There's oolong tea, white tea, yellow tea, red tea, green tea, black tea, puer tea, etc. Basically, it's all instant tea that's readily dissolvable in either cold or hot water.

I tried to navigate to the page where it says how small the particles are, but that didn't open.

But instant tea packets were around long before nanotechnology. So I don't know what this tea has to do with that. It could be just some kind of marketing gimmick. Whatever the case, I don't think nanotech should be used in food.

niisonge

Thanks for the interpretation. Plugging the Chinese characters ?????? meaning nano enriched selenium black tea into Google I found this link a little more informative:

Ironically I have a medical condition that benefits from selenium. At this time of year it comes in the form of Brazil nuts which are so rich with the mineral the daily allowance is only 3-4 nuts. Anymore and you risk poisoning.

PS I like how Google comes up with Ottawa Stack from WoDui ;-). I use the Google translator so much Im start> I just read the other page about nanotechnology processing. They are

Ok, quick, new addition to the Bablecarp: Ottawa Stack: the Googlated version of "WoDui".

That website doen't satisfy my curiosity. Much of it is just a copy from the other page. In this case, the older leaves of Tieguanyin are used. They're fermented and then immediately freeze dried. (It doesn't say this, but I supposed it's made into soluble tea crystals.) But what I don't understand is, why go to all the trouble of nanotechnology to enrich the tea? Why not just fortify the tea with a blend of vitamins and minerals - like they do with cereal and other food products?

And if it is manufactured at a nanoparticle size, how safe is that to have in your home? When you put the tea into the cup, how much of those nanoparticles are going to fly up into your nose and mouth and into the lungs? What if you sneeze just at that moment? And when you drink the tea, and smell it, are nanoparticles going into the lungs? And what if those nanoparticles cause mesothelioma? Scary stuff.

I don't like the technolatry of tea. Tea should be a natural product. Let's keep it that way and not mess up a good thing.

Reminds me of my grandparents using snuff. Tobacco so fine when inhaled through the nose was absorbed immediately into the brain. Wasnt there something about nano TGY killing the HIV1 virus. Wouldnt nano particles be so fine you couldnt see them. This seems a complicated solution to a problem that could be solved by simpler means as you suggested. I constantly get email from one local tea shoppe about the lastest health benefit of tea. I disagree with them about presenting it that way even to a small extent as they do. But then I dont make a living selling tea.

Jim

Yes, they did say nanoparticle selenium enriched tea was beneficial to HIV patients. But without a scientific paper or link to another webiste with the same info, who knows what to believe?

Exactly; and that's my point. There are some agents that want to bring tea into the technological age. But maybe that's really not what's best for what is a natural product. We drink tea because it's natural. Therefore, we don't want it technologically enhanced just for the sake of technology.

You should point out to them that it's not good to just blindly tout all the health benefits without stating the contraindications, for example people who get stomach ulcers (stay away from TGY) or even any tea, since it could worsen the situation. People who are prone to gallstones as well should not drink too much tea; etc. The list goes on. From a legal perspective, as a business, you want to minimize your exposure to risk. So it's not good to gloss over the risks of over- consumption of tea. It would also be smarter to position your business as someone who cares about the customer's health and well-being rather than just put out the message "here, drink this it will cure everything you got; and buy lots of it because it's good for you".

I wouldnt mind drinking tea from a steaming heap of Ottawa TGY if they made that ;-). Ive passed a couple of kidney stones in my lifetime. Doesnt stop me from drinking tea. I realized a long time ago I couldnt start a tea shoppe. Id have to give people what they wanted.

Jim

The carp may be a bottom feeder, but there are some things it just can't digest.

/Lew

The carp is ok. But machine translations/web translators are so unreliable - you don't know whether to laugh or cry. Certainly can't catch nuances in meaning.

On another note, someone stole my egg on Sanzui - no way to get it back now. :-(

Sorry Lew,

"Ok" is a little too casual. What I should have said is the Bablecarp is an excellent online resource for tea terminology - the only one of its kind. And it is much appreciated.

Does anyone know if BabelCarp has a Chinese name with the characters beyond the apparent literal interpretation. If it doesnt it should. Ive noticed Google gives a better translation for the more scientific or scholarly text. I use it with Sanzui and it doesnt even make sense ie it fails to understand using my favorite Senate word of the month colloquially.

Jim

PS Niis> > The carp may be a bottom feeder, but there are some things it just > > can't digest.

No need to apologize, Warren - I didn't take offense. But it's very nice to read your followup.

/Lew

I suppose I could come up with a literal translation of BabelCarp using Chinese characters. If I use Google it comes me ??? for the phonetication of Babel and the carp translation ??. It struck me Ive never seen your preferred moniker for BabelCarp in Chinese mentioned here.

Jim

On Sanzui, I go by the user name ????. I don't post that often on there - only when there's a new topic that interests me. Some of the older threads from 2004 are still going on there, haha. But it's too much time to wade through all of the replies. Just too many pages. I mainly hang out on ??? just to listen to Chinese radio.

IMHO, it would need a better re-working in Chinese, rather than to just use a literal translation. It's very important for Chinese to use nice sounding, catchy names; rather than literal translation of the English.

For example, you could try: ???? (Bao Cha Ci Dian) Precious Tea Dictionary Where Bao is a "b" word to like Babel.

Or maybe: ????? (Bao Li Ci Dian) Precious Carp Tea Dictionary

Something like that anyway. The first example is better than the second, IMO.

How about Bo2 (abundant) rather than Bao3 (treasure, precious)? Each entry may be right or wrong, but hey, there are almost 2700 of them by now!

(Not that I'll necessarily go ahead and adorn the thing with Hanzi...)

/Lew