I drink everything but fruit juices and smoothies 🙂 A good cup of coffee is a treat, but if asked tea or coffee, I will have to say tea.

Tea is good any time of the day; vast variety of flavours and ways to drink it makes tea one of the most important plants ever discovered! I went to the tea tasting session in the Museum of Tea Ware when visiting Hong Kong last year.

I thought tea tasting is a version of tea ceremony,  not quite 🙂 but it was still very enjoyable and gave me a much better understanding of tea flavours.

Read What You Should Know About Tea by the Precision Nutrition for facts, figures and benefits of regular tea drinking , consider just a few:

• Tea restores blood vessels’ function in those with coronary artery disease
• Tea helps to prevent atherosclerosis
• Regular tea drinkers had a 65% reduced risk of developing high blood pressure

But still most of us stick with the basic brew, we’ve always drank. Nothing wrong with that, I’m just suggesting to widen horizon, so we can choose what we drink and enjoy health benefits of tea drinking!

Some people do not enjoy green tea, possibly because they’ve never had it properly brewed. As for black teas it’s mainly a supermarket tea bag affair, isn’t it? 🙂 With the amount of teas available in the shops choosing becomes more and more difficult, I would definitely recommend visiting a specialist tea shop and trying your blacks, reds, greens, Oolongs… Great way to spend an afternoon and discover what you actually like! Here are a few of tea suppliers in London or just search in your area 🙂

I like lighter green teas like High Mountain Tea from Zhejiang and Matcha (when I can afford!), but have recently discovered Japanese Genmaicha, which is quite amazing… It’s all about the taste – try as many as you can! Here’s a great read, which will help with flavours – A Beginner’s Guide To Drinking Better Green Tea.

Those of you interested in tea origins and it’s breathtaking history can listen to the amazing podcast by Laszlo Montgomery of the China History Podcast. There are 10 one hour episodes and such great length is fully justified: we, Europeans, only been drinking tea since 17th century, that’s 300 years, but the earliest official records in China go back to 10th century BC! Each episode is packed with facts, and myths, and stories, and practical advice. Treat these as an audio-book and learn something new and truly fascinating! Here is the link to the 1st episode, enjoy!

And lastly some info why some of us need to be careful with green tea and maybe stick to other teas.  Many of green tea’s benefits are due to its effects on the immune system and for people with diagnosed autoimmune conditions, especially a Th2 dominance disorders, green tea might not be advisable. Here is a good clear read by the Precision Nutrition specialists, mainly about green tea but other products mentioned too, will help you learn and understand, so you can choose well for yourself and your loved ones.

I hope you find this info useful 🙂 Pass it on, share the tea info! Let’s all enjoy a good cuppa, it tastes so much better with history and benefits added on!