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This post came to be called “Top 9 YouTube Tea Videos” when I was unable to post a link to a 10th tea video which, while hilarious, contained some offensive language. If you are interested in viewing this 10th tea video, I’m sure William, who may be found at Tea Guy Speaks, will be more than happy to provide you with the link. Thank you!
By William I. Lengeman III
YouTube – you may have heard of it. As of this writing the wildly popular video site plays host to somewhere in the neighborhood of a zillion videos on every imaginable topic. Of course, with that many videos available, it’s no surprise that a bunch of them deal with tea. Here are the 10 most popular tea videos at YouTube, based on view counts.
With nearly six million views, this popular song parody is possibly the most popular tea video out there. A rap-themed spoof on the high-falutin’ side of tea culture, it was made to promote an alcohol-based tea drink by Smirnoff.
Japanese/Thai tea commercial with caterpillars
An animated tea commercial in which two caterpillars drive home the point that the “top tea leaves” are the most desirable.
Britney Spears GG Tea Commercial
The one and only Britney shimmies and shakes in the interests of pushing a Japanese brand of bottled tea.
Britney Commercial for GG Tea V.2
Britney does it again, this time in a pink polka dot getup.
Drinking tea with chopsticks in microgravity
Gives a whole new meaning to the term bubble tea.
What happens when you leave a cup of tea sitting around for too long? Not so nice.
Lipton Ice Tea Ad: Hugh Jackman – Tokyo Dancing Hotel
As the name would suggest, there’s Lipton tea, there’s dancing and there’s Hugh Jackman.
Smirnoff’s not nearly so popular follow-up to the Tea Partay viral video.
My Sassy Girl in Hot Korean Lemon Tea Commercial
A mildly risqué Korean tea commercial that finds an actress getting way too worked up over a bottle of tea.
We’re just about a month into summer now and it’s pretty much the peak of iced tea season. In the United States, iced tea still makes up the overwhelming majority of tea consumed. Of course, that’s with good reason, as you surely know if you’ve ever downed a glass or five on a sweltering day.
So it’s all good, right? We’re cleared to spend the summer swilling as much iced tea as our little stomachs can possibly hold? Well, apparently this might not be the case for everyone. Now, if you’ve followed the news about all of the many and diverse health benefits attributed to tea (many of them published in these very pages) you might have formed the impression that tea is a miracle elixir that can do no harm.
The miracle elixir part might be overstating things a bit and tea is probably not likely to do you much harm – unless you’re prone to kidney stones. Now before you go rushing to the tea cabinet to destroy everything, a few clarifications are in order.
First of all, if you’re a woman, you’re less likely to be affected by the malaise of kidney stones, regardless of the cause. If you’re a man in your forties or older, then you’re in one of the highest risk groups. You should also keep in mind that it’s primarily the iced variety that’s the cause of tea-related kidney stones and, by some accounts, it’s primarily black tea that’s the most risky.
So do you rush to the refrigerator now and toss out all of your iced tea? Speaking as a nearly 50-year old male who drinks a considerable amount of black tea year-round and has never been plagued with a kidney stone (knock wood), I’d have to say not so fast, though a measure of caution is always in order. It’s helpful to stay well hydrated in general and lemons, whether in your tea or however you take them, have been found to be helpful in reducing the risk of kidney stones.
For other ideas on how to avoid this painful malady and for more on the tea/kidney stone connection, refer to this article.
Make sure to check out William’s blog, Tea Guy Speaks. It’s much more pleasurable than passing a kidney stone!
By some accounts, tea is the second most popular drink in the whole entire world – after prune juice (did I say that? – it’s after water, actually). Tea is consumed by all kinds of people in all kinds of ways. And yet most of us probably still tend to think of it a sedate and proper beverage favored by cultured types and ladies of a certain age who often sport hair of a certain color (bluish).
Which is true, at least to some extent, but it does nothing to explain the likes of an extreme variety of tea known as Russian prison tea. Which is not an actual type of tea, mind you. Apparently any type of tea can be used to make Russian prison tea but most accounts suggest that black tea in teabags is a fairly common choice.
Russians drink their share of tea, of course, and even went so far as to develop a gadget known as the samovar to aid in this process. As for Russian prison tea, which is apparently known as chifir in those parts, the key feature of this brew is that it has to be strong – to say the least.
Accounts vary and, given the nature of this blend, there probably is no hard and fast recipe for Russian prison tea. But there are cases in which chifir is supposedly steeped using as much as 10 times the amount of tea us non-incarcerated types would normally use to make a cup.
Which has gotta make for some lively tea drinking experiences in the Russian big houses. According to one novel, Vodka For Breakfast, a so-called “quirky, existential thriller” by the Russian writer David Gurevich, an inmate of a Russian prison who had indulged in a bit too much of this treat, “stripped naked outside the barracks in the forty below weather and did cartwheels until the guards finally ‘calmed him down’”.
I shouldn’t even need to say it, but don’t try this at home, kids.
Until relatively recently eating food that had been grown locally was the only game in town for most of the world’s peoples. With the advent of modern transportation methods these practices fell by the wayside for many of us but have seen something of a resurgence in recent years with the so-called locavore movement.
All of which means very little to tea drinkers in many parts of the world. If you live in the United States, for example, you can drink locally grown tea only if you happen to live near a handful of small-scale growers in South Carolina, Washington or Hawaii. The situation is similar in Great Britain, whose endless thirst for tea will never be satisfied by the output of one lonely plantation in the southern part of England.
If you live in China or India, the world’s top tea-producing countries, then your chances of getting your hands on some locally grown tea are probably better than they are for most of us, although much of the output of these nations is marked for export. As of 2007, China, which is known for turning out some of the world’s most notable tea varieties, was the also the world’s top tea grower, turning out more than a million tons.
Not far behind is India, which turns out a substantial amount of tea, most of it from the Assam region. But with the exception of the relatively modest amounts of tea grown in the Darjeeling region and some single-estate Assams, Indian tea is not generally the first choice of connoisseurs.
As is the case with the African nation of Kenya, the third-ranked tea growing nation, with its output consisting primarily of black tea that would be considered suitable mostly for everyday drinking. Other noteworthy players on the list are Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) and Japan, which take positions number four and six and which both turn out a number of impressive varieties. Japan is especially notable for producing a number of great green tea varieties. Rounding out the world’s top ten tea growing countries, Turkey, Vietnam, Indonesia, Argentina and Iran.
Stop by William’s blog, Tea Guys Speaks, and see what’s happening!
It should come as no surprise to anyone that there are a number of excellent books about the role tea has played in China. After all, China is generally accepted as the birthplace of tea drinking and culture and is still one of the top producers of tea worldwide, not to mention the point of origin for a number of truly outstanding premium teas.
One of first books about tea and China is likely also one of the first books ever written about tea. It comes to us courtesy of an ancient Chinese scholar named Lu Yu. His pioneering book – The Classic of Tea – is not readily available these days but if you’re lucky you might run across a secondhand copy for not too exorbitant a price.
In his more contemporary book, The Chinese Art of Tea, Asian scholar John Blofeld looks at, well, the Chinese art of tea, in a work that blends practical information about tea with songs, poems and stories about tea and tea culture. Blofeld’s book is also not in print right now, but used copies should be much more accessible than Lu Yu’s book.
It’s likely that one book will never encapsulate all the tea in China, but Kit Chow and Ione Kramer’s aptly named All The Tea In China does a decent job of tackling this vast topic. It includes a guide to 50 different varieties of Chinese tea and more. Also worth a glance, The Way of Tea: The Sublime Art of Oriental Tea Drinking, by Km Chuen Lam and Kai Sin Lam, who take a look at many of the basics of tea drinking from an Asian perspective.
As the publisher notes, Great Teas of China, by Roy Fong, is “an authoritative guide to the extraordinary tea world of China, written by the leading master tea merchant in the United States, Roy Fong. From hand-picked white teas from Fu Ding and expertly crafted oolong from Taiwan, to patiently aged puerh from Yunnan and everything in between, Fong offers his insights on choosing, brewing and enjoying over a dozen of his favorite Chinese teas.”
How did tea make its way beyond the borders of China, a country which once pretty much had a monopoly on it? The answers are revealed in Sarah Rose’s For All the Tea in China, which hit bookstores in the United States earlier this year. Last up, The True History of Tea. Though not specifically about tea and China, the book contains a great deal of information about China’s important role as the birthplace of tea drinking and culture.
Make sure to check out William’s blog, Tea Guy Speaks! It’s a great place to learn about all the latest happenings in the world of tea!
Tea is good for you. Now that’s a pretty blunt statement but – as you may have noticed if you’ve been reading some of the articles published in these pages lately – there have been a number of studies released over the past decade or so to support this assertion.
One of the more noteworthy of these studies – at least if you judge these things merely by size and scope – is the so-called ww, a Japanese project more properly known as the Ohsaki National Health Insurance Cohort Study. In this study, which got underway in 1994, Japanese researchers looked at the effects of green tea consumption on 40,530 Japanese adults who previously had no history of stroke, coronary heart disease, or cancer.
The objective of the research was to investigate the associations between green tea consumption and all-cause and cause-specific mortality, specifically with respect to cardiovascular disease and cancer. Results were published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2006.
Participants of the study were followed up for up to 11 years (1995-2005) for all-cause mortality and for up to 7 years (1995-2001) for cause-specific mortality.
Over 11 years of follow-up, 4209 participants died, and over 7 years of follow-up, 892 participants died of cardiovascular disease and 1134 participants died of cancer. Green tea consumption was inversely associated with mortality due to all causes and due to cardiovascular disease.
While other research has found that the high antioxidant levels in green tea helped to reduce tumors, the Japanese study found no clear connection between tea consumption and lower death rates from cancer. The researchers did discover, however, that people who drink green tea are less likely to die from cardiovascular disease, particularly stroke.
For more information on The Ohsaki Study, refer to this abstract from the Journal of the American Medical Association.
As we’ve already noted in these pages a number of times, there are six major types of tea derived from the Camellia sinensis plant – black, green, white, yellow, oolong and puerh. In the West, black tea is probably the best known of the bunch and green tea has swelled in popularity in the last several years. White tea and oolong have increased in popularity thanks, at least in part, to the increase in popularity of green tea.
Which leaves yellow – a relative rarity – and puerh, which also shows up as pu-er, pu erh, pu-erh, pu’erh, pu’er and probably some other variations. Puerh is a type of tea that for most of us in the West is probably the least well known of the bunch. It’s hardly possible to tackle the vast subject of puerh tea in the brief space available here, but we can list a few good resources for novices.
Puerh is produced in China’s Yunnan province, in the general vicinity of a city that changed its name to Pu’er not so long ago, a tribute to its most famous product. For good basic overviews of puerh, refer to the Wikipedia entry and to Pu-erh Tea: An Introduction, from the Miro Tea blog.
Also worth a look, Pu-erh.Net, which the publisher describes in the following terms, “a Web Site that chronicles a Westerner’s quest to discover, and publish, the truth about Puerh. I attempt to dispel the myths, and educate the English speaking public, about this wonderful and mysterious variety of tea.” Among the resources at Pu-erh.Net, reviews, article, links and much more.
For another useful source of information about puerh try the Puerh Tea Community hosted at LiveJournal. It bills itself as “The Place For Puerh,” and is described as “an LJ community for lovers of pu’er tea and the curious. Pu’er tea is an earthy tea that improves with age, much like wine or cigars.” Among the resources here, an extensive selection of puerh reviews.
Some types of puerh get better with age and so are often compared to wine, with a similar cachet among collectors and connoisseur types. Aged puerh can be very expensive, something that’s often focused on in various news articles about puerh. For an example of such an article, look here. Some puerh is potentially quite valuable so it’s helpful to know how to spot fake puerh. For some instruction on this matter, refer to this article.
Don’t forget to check out William’s blog, Tea Guy Speaks!
If asked to name a beverage that’s synonymous with Russian culture, let’s face it, many of us will probably pick vodka. While tea is hardly as popular in that part of the world as this clear spirit it has long been an important part of the Russian beverage landscape nonetheless, having been first introduced there several centuries ago. Tea is significant enough in this part of the world that the Russians evolved a unique device – the samovar – with which to make their tea.
Russian Caravan Tea
Perhaps not surprisingly, given the cold climate, Russians have tended to favor the more robust flavors of black tea, the ones that seem somehow to put the warmth back into our chilled bones. One of the best known of these bears the exotic and rather alluring moniker of Russian Caravan Tea.
In his article, Russia Discovers Tea…and a Somovar, tea expert James Norwood Pratt notes that Russian caravans numbering up to 300 camels would sometimes take as much a year to make journeys to bargain with their various trading partners to the south. One of the articles traded – tea – was initially so pricey that it could only be found in the households of aristocrats and others with deep pockets. Within a century after first being introduced to Russia, Pratt notes, this new beverage had become so popular that tea drinkers there were consuming more than three million pounds annually.
According to the corresponding Wikipedia entry, Russian Caravan tea “is a blend of Oolong, Keemun and Lapsang Souchong teas.” The flavor of oolong tea may vary widely, but the more robust varieties have a smoky, earthy quality. Smokey is a term that can also be applied to the Chinese black variety known as Keemun, though this note is typically not nearly so pronounced. And the smokiest of them all, Lapsang Souchong, gets it unique taste (an acquired one, for some) from being processed over pine wood fires.
Don’t forget to check out William’s blog, Tea Guy Speaks!
Never let it be said that the Internet was brought into existence so that human beings might while away the days of their lives in frivolous pursuits. But it’s true, at least to some extent.
If killing time is what you’ve got in mind, of course, the Internet is a great place to achieve your goals. This sort of thing goes for tea lovers as well as the general public. So the next time the boss isn’t looking and you’re on the prowl for tea-related stuff to help while away the hours – and perhaps an occasional site that actually has some practical use – try out a few of these Web sites.
Whose turn is it to make tea? Well, obviously this is the sort of thing that’s directed primarily toward an audience of Britishers who might find such a utility useful. Tea Tracker is an online application that helps the gang in your office keep track of who’s due to make tea next.
How much do you know about tea? Test your knowledge of all things tea-related with an online quiz presented by the Tea Association of the USA.
Now here’s a proper time waster, a tea-related online game with racing elephants, no less, all of which comes to us courtesy of PG Tips and the Rainforest Alliance.
Okay, so this one is kind of useful, actually, especially if you’ve had it up to here with oversteeped bitter tea. From the gang over at Adagio Tea, it’s a downloadable tea timer designed for use on Windows computers.
More of the same, but this one’s for the Mac people. Cuppa is a downloadable tea timer for computers using Mac OS X and iCuppa is an app that can be used on the iPhone and iPod touch.
Don’t forget to check out Tea Guy Speaks!
So who does drink the most tea? There are probably many tea lovers out there who think that the trophy for this singular achievement should go on their mantle, but in this case we’re actually looking at rates of tea consumption by country.
Turkish Tea
If you were going to guess, just right off of the top of your head, what nation was comprised of the most avid tea drinkers, you’d probably be inclined to go with the British. After all, tea is as an ingrained a part of the culture there as coffee is in these here United States. And it wasn’t so long ago that the British named tea as one of the icons that helped to form their national identity, along with the likes of Big Ben, double-decker buses and more. So while this would be a good guess, in reality, at least if we’re going by the latest figures for this sort of thing, the United Kingdom is in second place.
So who are the world’s greatest tea drinkers? That would be the Turkish, now that you mention it, who consume an impressive 2.5 kg per person per year. This puts them ahead of the British, although not by very much of a margin. The average Brit drinks 2.1 kg of tea per year. This, in turn, puts them ahead of the third place finishers – the Irish – by about one kilogram annually. For more on tea culture in Turkey and Ireland.
Who else comprises the world’s truly serious tea drinkers? Morocco and Iran round out the top five – not far behind Ireland – and Egypt, New Zealand, Poland, Japan, Netherlands and Australia make up the rest of the top ten. What’s interesting, given that they are the world’s top tea producing countries, is that China (#14) and India (#11) don’t even rank in the top ten. As for the United States, well, it shouldn’t come as any great surprise that we only make it to #20 on the list, with a rather meager seven ounces of tea put away per person per year.
Don’t forget to check out Tea Guy Speaks!
