This morning there was a piece in The New York Times*: ”Is green tea really ‘nature’s Ozempic’?” (The latter—should you not watch television—is the new magic potion for losing weight.) The answer to the question was “unclear.” But apparently green tea “affects areas of the brain that regulate hunger.” Green tea has a number of health-giving properties.
I was happy to read the piece because I love green tea–owe a great deal to it–and I remembered that I wrote about it a few years ago**. Herewith:
I used to regard green tea the way I regarded Charlie Chaplin: ho hum… Then Bill taught a class in film comedy and I saw The Kid, The Circus, City Lights, Limelight and fell bonkers in love with Chaplin the man, the artistic genius.
Same enlightenment recently came with green tea.
How?
Kidney stones.
After eighty-two stone-free years, suddenly I’d formed eight. No sooner did I learn that a compound in plants called oxalate was the likely culprit, I was stunned to find potatoes, sweet potatoes, spinach, beans, beets, almonds, cashews, peanuts, dates, chocolate/cocoa, raspberries, rhubarb, anything of wheat, brown rice, and cornmeal were among the heaviest oxalate hitters. Surprising I’d escaped so long!
To make matters worse, my urologist said I should drink two liters of water a day. For years I’d heard about good hydration. But I don’t like water and whistled past knowing that liquid plumps the skin (especially old skin), lubricates muscles and joints (especially worn muscles, creaky joints), increases blood volume (keeping aging tissues in balance)—and most particularly for me, can stave off urinary tract infections (UTIs) and kidney stones. Fluids dissolve/float/flush away the bad guys.
Okay, okay. New daily regime: two liters of fluid and no more than 50 mg. of soluble oxalates.*** My fluids of choice would be coffee, 2% milk, buttermilk, Sauvignon Blanc, lemonade, and in a pinch, fizzy water. (Easy check for the desired good-health-intake: output is straw-colored.)
So much to give up for the rest of my life—including my beloved Ceylon and Lapsang teas…I could polish off half my oxalates at my desk as one cup of black tea has 5 mg.
I noticed green tea has one-fourth as much or less.
But, thought I, green tea is like Chaplin. Boring.
Then cruising the tea section at the market I saw a box labeled, “Jasmine Green Tea.” Really? Jasmine lifted a nondescript brew into elegance, a drizzle of honey added more flowers. I was so happy!
Fascinated, I read that eight hundred years ago in China, someone noticed that tea leaves are very absorbent…it was summer and Hey! What if…?
So they strewed freshly picked jasmine blossoms over trays of dried tea leaves, renewed the blossoms over several days…when the blossoms were finally removed, the tea leaves were perfumed. Today estates and purveyors all over Asia produce jasmine green tea in a similar method.
What is green tea? Tea—next to water the most popular drink in the world—is made from leaves of a form of evergreen camellia shrub (camellia sinensis, Chinese Camellia). Tea is cultivated principally in China and Japan but also Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Tanzania–and I read a determined devotee has cultivated tea in Scotland.****
Several times a year, tender leaves and leaf buds are plucked from the top one-to-two inches of the shrub. Leaves and buds from the year’s first “flushing” (picking) are finest quality.
Depending on the estate, leaves for green tea are dried on trays under sunlight, over charcoal, or with steam.
Next they’re briefly roasted in order to halt oxidation, which is often referred to as fermentation. Enzymes in tea leaves reacting to oxygen give oolong, black, and pu’er (tea produced in the Yunnan province of China) teas their depth of color and flavor.
Leaves and leaf buds for green tea are not permitted to oxidize, thus green tea is close to the leaves’ natural state.
White tea is closest, as leaves are dried but not roasted. I haven’t explored white teas yet…
Of names to know in choosing your green tea—should you be adventurous and go past the jasmine green tea stage–from China comes Dragon Well (Longjing, one of the finest), Gunpowder (leaves hand-rolled into pearls), Mao Feng (leaves resemble orchid buds). I myself love the pearls of gunpowder tea. Japan’s most abundant green tea is called Sencha. Gyokuro means “jade dew,” the leaves are darker green because they’re grown in shade, Gyokuro is considered the noblest of Japanese green teas. I even found a “Golden Celebration Gyokuro”—flakes of gold added in honor of the New Year. Japan’s Matcha green tea is leaves ground to a powder…Matcha began as ceremonial tea but nowadays is whisked into cups in the manner of instant coffee. The Japanese word for tea is cha, so if you see a tea name with cha at the end, it’s from Japan.
Green tea is like a pale green wash on a sheet of watercolor paper—impossible for the artist not to want to embellish it. Jasmine blossoms are just the beginning. Purveyors offer green tea flavored with roses, chamomile, sunflowers, mint, basil, mango, papaya, peach, strawberries, black raspberries, blueberries, cherries, coconut, lemon, orange, almond, turmeric, cucumber, and, classically, toasted brown rice. Hardly a cup of boring.
And then last June in Dublin in a breakfast cafe I ordered a pot of jasmine green tea. They were out of it. The tea that came in its place surprised me. It was interesting…rounded flavor…subtly sweet but not flowery…a tad of a lift, a bit of an edge. “What is this?” I asked our server. She shrugged, “Green tea.” Found it’s blended in Belfast (love that), Sencha tea flavored with ginseng, ginger, and pineapple–and I can have it at home!***** These days when I’m dieting or mending a broken bone (or both simultaneously) and can’t drink wine, I am so grateful for Green Tea Ginseng. It wafts me through putting supper together, eating supper, and our nightly movie while I knit.
As long as I can remember, I’ve read that components of green tea have remarkable preventative and curative powers—that it was just about the healthiest drink on the planet. Now I find the scientific community is hesitant to validate this. On the internet, as with most subjects, there are compelling articles to be gleaned that both support and refute a thesis. I’m for the one that ends Conclusion: Green tea has an inhibitory effect on urinary stone formation, and the antioxidative action of EGCG is considered to be involved.******
Something more from my own experience since my bout with stones. Green tea contains plant compounds called polyphenols which have antibacterial effects. I once felt a UTI coming on and over a couple of days drowned the damn thing with green tea. No kidding.
A long way from thinking green tea boring…
I wrote the above five years ago. Since then, awareness of the aging process is felt more keenly—i.e., if I want to aim for one hundred years as my mother achieved—as the possessor of what our doctor calls “old kidneys,” I cannot cannot cannot drink wine every night. Ma did, but I don’t want to press my luck.
To keep my precious kidneys happy, I must must must drink buckets of liquid, be well hydrated. Ugh.
So my homespun solution has been to minimize caffeine as much as possible—caffeine is a diuretic/dehydrator–to maximize my fluid intake. I found a rich dark decaf coffee (Maud’s), enjoy two/three cups a day (with a drizzle of almond milk)… Drink only green tea (29 milligrams caffeine vs. 47 mg in black tea). I do have a decaf green tea on hand but… just but. Herbal teas have no caffeine, and I have a marvelous ginger/turmeric tea which gives a great boost, but I haven’t found another herbal tea as interesting. Haven’t stopped looking. Tea purveyors are marvelously creative…just cruising their offerings online I find stimulating. I’ve had great luck with (alphabetically) Harney & Sons, Prince of Peace, Stash, Suki, Tazo, Tea Forte, and The Republic of Tea. Tea people seem to have a special quality about them…
So now when I come into the kitchen to make supper, instead of pouring a slosh of wine, I brew myself a double cup of usually jasmine green tea. Another virtue of green tea (and white and herbal) is that you don’t bring the water to a boil…just to HOT to preserve the leaves’ delicacy. And it’s steeped for three minutes, not black tea’s five. In a day/in a week/in a month, the time and fuel saved does add up. But yes, I often use wasteful pre-measured teabags…more time saved (and time, for me at this point, is a consideration). But I mix it up—green pearls are so interesting in the cup. And the type of loose-tea strainer that sets over the top of the cup I find easiest.
I no longer add sweetener. Honey also adds up.
In my life, leaves have come to be a delicious, comforting, uplifting replacement for the uplifting grape.
Hey, just wondering…has anybody come up with a green tea toast in the realm of “Cheers!”?
*The New York Times, 9/24/24.
**December 15, 2019.
***Jill Harris and the University of Chicago is the oxalate listing resource I rely on.
****Wikipedia, accessed 12/13/19.
***** Suki Tea Company, Belfast. Shipping is costly, but the tea is moderately priced and SO REFRESHING.
******https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/end.2006.20.356, accessed 12/10/2019.
