tea leaf protection mechanism chemicals that may affect humans?

so there is apparently some "well known" knowledge (in China or Chinese traditional medicine) that sheng puerh/green puerh/wild puerh leaf (maybe even green tea) contains some "poisons" or some natural chemicals (self-produced by the tea plant) that may be harmful to humans... i'm somewhat skeptical, but i'm open to being informed...

Reply to
SN
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Not too weird and complicated. Neutrals are carbs, think rice. Yin (cold) are most fruits and veggies. Yang (hot) is most meat and "sharp" veggies- hot peppers, garlic, and radishes. Refer to the Western food pyramid, Toci

Reply to
toci

Well, it is weird - because what we would consider perfectly good food in the West - here in China, lots of people avoid it like the plague, as if it will poison their bodies. Not only that, whenever something goes wrong with their body, they will say, "too hot". And basically blame it on eating foods that were too "hot".

Everything is weird in China. They even practice head-shapening or head-flattening of newborn babies.

Reply to
niisonge

Not only that - they drink ... tea!

/Lew

Reply to
Lewis Perin

strangeness

yeah so it seems i misunderstood the 'hazards' ...it was a reference to the hot/cold concepts indeed...

Reply to
SN

What's even more strange is they have candy in the supermarkets - individually wrapped in foil wrappers - but... it's actually meat!!! Candy shouldn't be meat, it should be candy!!! Right? I ate it a few times; certainly doesn't taste like candy. It tastes like meat! Kind of makes me sorry for all the kids that think candy is made from meat, hahaha. So remember, when coming to China and offered candy, be sure to check that it's what we think of as candy. I always decline when someone offers me meat candy, but I always end up stuck with a handful anyway. Darn it.

Reply to
niisonge

what !

you mean like a preserved meat? ... beef jerky type stuff?

Reply to
SN

You bet! My kids love what they call "tuna treats" -- brightly- colored foil-wrapped "candy" dried tuna cubes. They offer them to their friends to see their reaction. Fruit-flavored candy beef (or tofu) jerky is also a popular treat for them.

Reply to
Iggy

Yeah, preserved meat - like beef jerky - except I think it's pork they put into those. They come in little retangular squares that look like candy, and wrapped just like candy. And they're called "candy".

And what's even more weird in China - Lipton tea is actually pretty good here! They sell packages that contain packets of individual servings of powdered tea - to which you just add water and stir (or shake). They got "Lipton Maccha Milk Tea" that's really good. It tastes just like the stuff I could make myself.

Reply to
niisonge

I have chewed on fresh tea buds to check quality potential for as long as I have been visiting tea gardens with no ill effects. But certainly "wild tea" growing in wet forests could build up a significant algal and bacterial layer on the leaves - this may have toxic tendencies.

However, given the potential for phytotoxin production when a post manufacture fermentation is instigated by keeping the tea leaves warm and moist for a long period and either seeding them with microorganisms or allowing nature to provide these, it is perhaps surprising that toxic pu erh is not better known. I hear a whisper on the tea grapevine that a certain large company recently found aflotoxin in imported black tea, yet alone a pu erh. As an ex food technologist I should be morbidly interested to see a HACCPs audit of pu erh manufacture, though blue Stilton cheese was once banned from Marks & Spencer shelves for much the same reason - but I happily eat that, along with fermented meat, yet eschew mouldy bread.

Nigel at Teacraft

Reply to
Nigel

Lipton sells tea to the Chinese??? That's like selling (poorer quality) ice to the Eskimo! The Lipton would have to be good at least in some way if it had a hope of selling there I imagine.

Melinda

Reply to
Melinda

Everything that isn't good for you is harmful. And some things that are good for you in one dose are harmful in larger or smaller doses.

Methyl salicylate is one of the more interesting examples, and it can be produced in greater amounts if the leaves are damaged. This makes for a very interestingly "airy" taste to the cup. It might also be bad for you, unless it's good for you.

Unfortunately it is also added artificially by unscrupulous vendors to make stale teas seem fresher, but that's another issue.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

Yeah, they got Lipton tea in China. In Shenzhen they make milk tea (like Hong Kong milk tea) from Lipton Yellow label. Elsewhere in China, it's mostly just powdered, instant stuff. Still pretty good though. They make those convenient packets that you put into any bottle of spring water - and shake - instant iced tea. But the maccha milk tea was the best of their product I've had so far.

Lipton - it's a Western brand, and anything with a Western brand name sells in China - no matter how we regard it in the West. Even the crappiest brands of the West, even little-known ones do very well here. Chinese have an obsession with buying absolutely everything brand name - from clothing to household items to cell phones, etc. And if it's a brand-name from the West, then it's even better. You could probably just invent a brand, bring it to China, open a shop in a glitzy shopping district and do very well here.

People who don't by the brands are considered lower-status, since brand name items here cost about the same as in the West.

Tea in China - any tea has a problem with branding itself. There are few famous brands. Most teas we know of, we go by the name of the tea and the location where picked - not by company or brand name. This is one area where the Chinese still need to work on things.

Reply to
niisonge

In the past couple of months I get an extra brew of green tea by topping off the spent morning leaves and letting it sit all day. No matter the leaf there is always a white film that develops. I think it is air bubbles held together by tannins. Or maybe some chemical residue like this and if so it is everywhere.

Jim

Scott Dorsey wrote:

Reply to
Space Cowboy

This is really interesting, but I'm not sure whom you mean by "we": westerners in general, western expats in China, Chinese people?

/Lew

Reply to
Lewis Perin

I mean by tea-drinkers or tea-lovers in general who happen to know something about tea. For example, Xihu Longjing, Anxi Tieguanyin, Xinyang Maojian, Wuyi Dahongpao, etc. You get the idea. Just about everyone who drinks these teas are familiar with where they come from, and the name of the tea. But to speak of an actual brand of tea, it's much more difficult. Tea companies here are just not well known. And anyway, in China, people really don't care about brand, they only care about the quality of the tea.

If you want examples of tea company brands, I could give you some. Eight Horses Tea (???) is supposed to be a famous brand - and they have retail outlets throughout China. But few people in China have heard about them.

Reply to
niisonge

By the way, here's the Eight Horses Tea website:

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You will see at the bottom of the page: ?????? (China famous trademark)

Reply to
niisonge

One other thing about Chinese tea "brands": when you ask Chinese, even those who know about tea what kind of tea brands China has, they all say "anxi tieguanyin, dongting biluochun, xihu longjing", etc. They equate China's famous teas with famous tea brands.

Reply to
niisonge

Yahoo! I figured out how to copy and paste Chinese characters in the Mac 10.0 IE 5.1 web browser. Its round about but use the html encoding for the character. You see that when you view the source html. Save what you want also as an html file. You use the same encoding when you paste into Google for a search.

The rest of the world uses the word Tradenames for the teas you mentioned.

Jim

Reply to
Space Cowboy

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