Tea And Prostate Cancer: Keep Headlines Truthful and Stay Out of Advocacy on Points You Don't Know

This post centers around the relatively recent study published on the topic of Tea and Prostate Cancer. If you're interested, here is a link to the actual study: Tea Consumption and the Risk of Overall and Grade Specific Prostate Cancer: A Large Prospective Cohort Study of Scottish Men.

In this post, I highlight something that happens on a nearly daily basis, which oversteps an ethical boundary for me, in the area of popular science coverage by the media. I also examine the way the UK Tea Council reacted to this research, and I urge them to take a different approach, which I think would ultimately be more helpful not only for the tea industry as a whole, but for their own organization, and for the state of popular science in society at large.

Specifically, I call them to focus their efforts on the media, ensuring truthful comments, rather than making statements about scientific studies in which they had not played any direct role.

An article about tea and health, where the headline poses ethical problems for me:

An article was recently published in the Telegraph, a UK newspaper, with the headline "Men who drink 7 cups of tea are 50 per cent more likely to develop prostate cancer". I am not going to link to this article because I have ethical problems with the choice of headline, and I do not wish to endorse it. You can find it in a search engine if you want. Here is a screenshot of the article:

I see a serious ethical problem with the choice of headline: it is less than fully truthful, and, when read in isolation, could be misleading. The objective reality is that a recent study found evidence that men who drink 7 cups of tea are 50 per cent more likely to develop prostate cancer. It is not truthful to state as fact that "Men who drink 7 cups of tea are 50 per cent more likely to develop prostate cancer".

Because a far greater number of people see a headline than actually read the article, even though the sub-heading of the article, and the article's text itself, clarify the more truthful, objective reality of the matter, a large number of people are going to read only the headline, and settle on the piece of information presented as fact (which is the result of a single study, certainly not accepted as scientific fact). I think that, collectively, this sort of simplistic news coverage leads the public consciousness to oscillate between one-sided views, like "tea is healthy" or "tea is unhealthy" rather than thinking holistically, and in more balanced terms.

The fact that this practice is the norm in the mainstream media does not make it ethically okay. Personally, I find it conflicts with my beliefs, as it less than untruthful, and I think that this sort of sloppy choice of headline serves to encourage simplistic thinking and spread misinformation. I would urge all news media to put greater care into maintaining truthfulness in headlines, and I would encourage all readers of media to put pressure on the businesses that run these organizations, to have greater integrity in their choice of headlines.

The UK Tea Council's Reaction:

The Tea Advisory Panel, which is run by the UK Tea Council, issued a statement which was presented in this article, that the "research was flawed and the higher incidence of prostate cancer could be attributed to other factors, such as smoking, stress or diet."

I also have ethical problems with this advisory panel issuing a statement on this matter. Was the person who made this statement directly involved in the research? Did the council include one or more of the scientists who carried out the peer review in the journal in which the study was published? Have they conducted a thorough meta-analysis of the research to date on tea and prostate cancer? I suspect that the answer to all three of these questions is no.

From a scientific perspective, if this person is just making an assertion of fact not backed by any evidence, their statement has no validity whatsoever. I definitely think that scientific research needs to be approached with a critical mind, and I think people and groups outside the scientific establishment often offer valid and useful criticisms of science. But I also think that blind criticism coming from an industry interest group has no role in science, and no credibility in my eyes.

I would like to call anyone who is a member of the UK Tea Council, or who has any sway over them, to ask them to refrain from these sorts of statements, and instead, to focus their efforts on the media, like the Telegraph (and numerous other papers), who have chosen a less-than-truthful headline. The study was just a scientific study, and it found some strongly suggestive evidence, but it certainly did not establish anything as undisputable fact. If there are flaws with the study, it will take deeper scrutiny, considerable time, and possibly further research to uncover them. It is highly doubtful that anyone from the UK Tea Council would have had time to scrutinize this study deeply enough to uncover any serious flaws in it, in the brief time between when it was published and when the advisory panel issued their statement.

What do you think?

Do you agree with me that the original headline, as shown here, is less-than-truthful? Would you prefer media to use greater care in creating headlines that are truthful when read on their own?

How do you feel about the statement from the UK Tea Council's Tea Advisory Panel? Do you think they have also overstepped an ethical bound? Do you agree with me that it would advance the public interest more for them to focus more on the truthful presentation of the study by mainstream media, than to make statements about a study in which they had no involvement and have not taken the time to scrutinize in depth from a scientific perspective?

I think that if the UK Tea Council's Advisory Panel focused on the media in the manner described above, they would ultimately be having much more of a positive impact on the world, in terms of promoting an accurate public understanding of the facts in this case. I also think they would look a lot more credible, both to me, and to the scientific community as a whole.

How Many People Are Put Off From Tea By Bad Green Tea?

I often like to re-read old posts on people's blogs. Sometimes I find them through web searches or links, other times by browsing. Today I want to draw attention to an old post on Adam Yusko's blog The Sip Tip. The post is titled Current thoughts on Tea Freshness, and the post is quite brief. I want to credit Adam's post with inspiring not only this post, but my recent post Why Can Green Tea Bags Be Worse Than Black Tea Bags?. In his post, Adam writes:

With all the health promotions out there, most peoples step away from black/ red tea would be a green tea, which is a lot more "time sensitive" than most black/red teas.

I've also noticed this, and I'd agree about the greater time-sensitivity of green tea, in that green tea is not as likely as black tea to stay fresh over long periods of time.

Also: green tea can be pickier about brewing:

I want to add to this observation that, with the exception of a few quirky teas (like Darjeeling oolong), I've found that green teas can be among the most sensitive to brewing temperature, and, in general, the most picky about brewing. I find a typical green tea takes more skill to brew well than a typical black, oolong, white, or Pu-erh tea.

Also: green tea purchased in tea bags can be worse than the worst black tea bags:

I recently published a post Why Can Green Tea Bags Be Worse Than Black Tea Bags? in which I explain how, in my experience, green tea bags can potentially be worse than the worst black tea bags.

Typical green teas in tea bags are more likely to lead to a bad tea drinking experience than black teas:

All these points, Adam's point about storage, and the points about brewing and the broader range of low-quality green tea bags, lead to the same conclusion: green teas are more likely to lead to a bad tea drinking experience for casual tea drinkers than other types of tea.

A lot of people try out tea first in the context of experimenting with green tea as a health product or weight loss method:

People who try out green tea as a health product are unlikely to experience green tea at its best, in the form of high-quality, loose-leaf green tea, properly prepared. What is more likely is that they will encounter low-quality tea in a tea bag, possibly of dubious freshness, and try brewing it with boiling water.



It's a sad fact that in America, many people's first experiences with tea are with low-quality green tea, in tea bags, consumed with intentions of weight loss or acquiring supposed "health benefits". These misguided ventures into green tea can be part of an overall healthy pattern of eating healthier foods, like when a person gives up soda for tea, but they can also be a part of harmful fad diets which have negative impacts on health. I'm active on Yahoo! Answers, where I sometimes answer tea-related questions, and an overwhelming majority of tea-related questions, once filtering through the ones about tea party politics, are ones relating to green tea and weight loss, with a few relating to green tea and promises of vague "health benefits".

Many of them are questions from people remarking that they want to start drinking green tea but that they find it tastes terrible.

How can we combat these things?

It's hard to combat a dominant cultural idea, like the ubiquitious association between green tea and weight loss in the public consciousness in America. I find that the best way to combat these sorts of ideas is, rather than negating or outright challenging them in an antagonistic way, to present a new, more truthful statement, and then, to repeat this statement frequently. I recommend:

• When talking to someone who seems motivated to drink tea for health or weight loss purposes, acknowledge and appeal to their concern for health. Emphasize that taste is a good indicator of freshness and quality, and that higher-quality teas and fresher teas are often lower in contaminants and are likely to be higher in beneficial chemicals (such as Vitamin C in green tea, which breaks down over time). Emphasize that whole-leaf tea stays fresh better than broken-leaf tea. Appeal to the things the person has already communicated that they care about (health). Emphasize that the process of enjoying your tea can be relaxing and can promote mindfulness, which is well-known to reduce stress and promote overall health.
• Avoid negating the person's motivations, and especially avoid telling the person what they "should" do, how they "should" think, or what they "should" want, and avoid approaching the person in any sort of way that puts them down. It can be tempting to say something like: "You shouldn't drink tea for its health benefits, you should drink tea because you like the way it tastes." This sort of statement is more likely to alienate a person and elicit a defensive reaction than a similar statement, worded like: "I recommend thinking less about health and focusing on drinking the teas that you enjoy most." or better yet, appeal to their desire for a healthy drink: "I think the healthiest approach is to focus on drinking the teas that taste best to you and that make you feel best."

It's a lot easier to work with people than against them!

Why Can Green Tea Bags Be Worse Than Black Tea Bags?

Before I delve in, I want to explain the exact meaning of this post's title. Among tea bags, there is a broad range of quality. But my personal experience has been that green tea bags range much farther into the low end of quality, poor quality, than do black tea bags. In other words, the worst green tea bags are much worse than the worst black tea bags.

It's been my experience that there is a certain base level of quality one can expect from even stale, low-end tea bags of straight black tea, as well as familiar styles of tea like Earl Grey, Ceylon, Irish Breakfast, etc. And it has also been my experience that the best green tea bags are about as good as the best black tea bags...but I think there are some really terrible green teas out there in tea bags.

The following highly subjective diagram illustrates this point:

Why? Because people buy green tea for reasons other than taste:

Although there may be other factors, such as a tendency for black tea to hold its flavor longer, which can partially explain the phenomenon I'm getting at here, I think there is one factor that overwhelms the others.

I think the broader range of quality among green tea bags for sale in America can be mostly explained by noting that here in the U.S., people frequently drink green tea for "health" reasons, whereas they rarely drink black tea for health reasons.

Black tea, on the other hand, is consumed primarily for taste, so any products on the market that were bad beyond a certain point would quickly stop being purchased. Green teas, on the other hand, persist, because people are buying them and drinking them because they feel they "should" drink them. There's that word "should" again, causing problems in our tea culture.

My advice, to everyone, is to drink what tastes good to you. Not only will you be helping to shape the marketplace in a positive way by weeding out the inferior products, but you'll probably be healthier too because you'll be drinking fresher, higher-quality tea.

What do you think?

Do you buy into my reasoning here? Does your own personal experience fit with the point illustrated in my diagram? Do you agree that the word "should" and beliefs related to statements involving what we "should" drink can undermine quality and allow inferior products to persist in the marketplace?

Updates to Article on Caffeine in Tea, And One Company's Studies on Caffeine and Antioxidants

On my recent post Scientific Research I'd Like To See Done on Tea's Caffeine, Vitamin C, etc., I had some useful comments which pointed me to some published studies which I did not know about. Eetu Mäkelä shared a ton of useful studies, a few of which I knew of but many of which I did not. I've begun to incorporate some of the new information into RateTea, but as much of it is not public access and I no longer am within a university environment, it will be a slow process. But already, I've made a few substantive changes to the article on the caffeine content of tea, shown here:

One interesting source:

There is one particular source that I've added that I think might be interesting for people who are really interested in this topic, a study by Camellia Sinensis Tea House on the caffeine content of their teas, which you can find published on their page on Tea and Health. I want to thank Guillaume TR for sharing this study with me. This study reinforces the same general trend that already was established by the article and the other sources, that it is not possible to generalize about caffeine content as a function of broad types of tea (black, green, white, oolong, etc.)

This table, a screenshot of the study, shows a few key points that I like about this study: it shows that the amount of leaf was standardized, and it clearly shows the conditions each tea were brewed in, and it studies the teas using recommended brewing temperatures and infusion times, thus comparing the teas as they would be likely to be consumed, rather than using the same brewing time and temperature for teas that most tea drinkers are going to brew in different ways.

I found this study interesting to read over, looking at the particular values, but I also found the fact that this study was even carried out at all to be rather interesting. Camellia Sinensis Tea House is not the biggest company, and yet they had the resources and drive to carry out this study on a fairly large selection of their teas. I find this encouraging, as it suggests to me that similar studies would be realistic for a large number of tea companies.

A study on antioxidants:

The same company also did a study of antioxidant content. Personally, I'm a little less interested in this study, mainly for the reason that the more I learn about antioxidants, the more I realize that, when it comes to antioxidants, more is not better. RateTea's page on the antioxidants in tea explains more, and the section "Potential Health Effects" on Wikipedia's Antioxidants page goes into more depth about this. One thing is clear though from the results of the antioxidant study: there's no trend of one type of tea (green, black, etc.), or of steamed (Japanese) vs. pan-fired (Chinese) teas, or even of higher vs. lower priced or graded teas being higher or lower in antioxidants. Matcha, however, does stand out for the simple reason that you are consuming the whole leaf when drinking it.

What do you think?

Do you think you can trust the values established by a study like the one provided here? Do you think it would be beneficial in any way (to the business, or to tea culture in general) for tea companies to carry out studies of the caffeine content of the specific teas in their catalogues? Do you think the antioxidant studies are worthwhile, or are you skeptical of them, like me?

Scientific Research I'd Like To See Done on Tea's Caffeine, Vitamin C, etc.

When conducting research on tea in the course of working on RateTea, I'm often surprised at how little basic scientific research there is out there on the chemical components of various types of tea, such as caffeine, vitamin C, theanine, and the various antioxidants.



Former president George W. Bush, pictured above, conducted a Q&A session in 2005, pictured above; this session, which focused on the topic of terrorism, still left me and the rest of the world with many unanswered questions about tea.

For example, when writing the article on the caffeine content of tea, I found only a handful of studies, and these studies did more to break down myths (like the myth about white tea being low in caffeine or black tea being high in caffeine) than they did to establish clear patterns of which teas have more or less caffeine. When working on the article on the vitamin C content of tea, I found even fewer studies. The results for theanine were similar; I found sources establishing that Gyokuro and Anji Bai Cha were high in theanine, but I did not find much in the way of thorough research characterizing which teas are relatively higher and lower, and explaining why this would be the case.

Some questions I'd like to see answered scientifically:

• Since it is known that green tea contains measurable vitamin C, whereas black tea contains either no vitamin C or only traces, I'd be curious to see if there is any vitamin C in the greenest of oolongs and the greenest of Darjeeling "black" teas, especially first flush. Given that some of these teas are greener in color than some green teas, I suspect many of these teas are as high in vitamin C as some green teas.


• I'd like to see some work on the levels of various chemicals in whole leaf tea, compared to broken-leaf tea, including the contents of various tea bags containing fannings or dust, and sachets containing whole leaf tea. These sorts of studies would be necessary to definitively answer questions comparing loose-leaf tea to tea bags.


• I'd like to see more work thoroughly exploring how the chemical components of tea differ from higher grades of tea, which tend to be more expensive, to lower grades of tea.


• I'd like to see studies that compare the chemical composition of tea to subjective impressions of its taste and other qualities, conducted by panels of experts and everyday tea drinkers, using blind taste tests. This would shed some light into whether or not impressions of freshness and quality correspond well to chemical changes in the tea.


• It is known that both Vitamin C and other antioxidants in tea tend to break down slowly over time, and that this process is slowed in teas that have been heated (like green tea). I'd be curious for work establishing how fast these chemicals break down, and if substantial breakdown happens before there is a noticeable change in the aroma or flavor of the tea. I'd also be curious to see if white tea would (as I would suspect) initially have a greater vitamin C content than green tea, but that the vitamin C would break down much faster than in green tea.

These are just a few of the questions that come to mind. Some of these would have health implications and would help answer questions about which teas are healthiest. Although I tend to focus primarily on taste, I would like to have a scientifically-valid answer when people ask me questions about which teas are healthiest. Currently, I find myself giving vague answers to these sorts of questions, because there's not enough research for me to give more thorough answers.

Low-hanging fruit?

Some of these questions seem like they'd be relatively inexpensive and straightforward to answer, as they'd just be a question of testing enough samples through fairly routine methods. Given all the highly expensive, specialized scientific work done nowadays, it seems like a lot of these questions would be more fruitful to pursue. I'd like to offer a hint to academic researchers looking for an easy publication that could attract a lot of attention: these topics might offer some low-hanging fruit.



Pictured here are some low-hanging fruit of the Sorbus aucuparia plant (Rowan tree or European Mountain Ash).

It seems silly to invest a lot of money in costly research on tea, such as controlled clinical trials of green tea supplements, when some of the most basic questions about tea's chemical components remain unanswered.

What do you think?

What sorts of scientific work would you like to have done on tea? Do you think the above questions would be interesting? Do you know of some studies that I've missed that would answer some of these questions or add useful conclusions to the pages I maintain?

Informational Tea Articles On A Commercial Tea Website

This post, continuing my series on best practices for tea company websites, explores the question of whether or not, and how, to include informational articles about tea on your website.



This screenshot shows informational articles about tea on RateTea. There are already many websites, including tea company websites, blogs, and strictly informational sites, offering articles about tea, so it is important to have good reasons for deciding to write articles for your site.

There are many different reasons that tea companies choose to include informational articles on their site. These include:

• Answering specific questions that your customers may have about your teas, or providing more information directly relevant to your customers.
• Helping to generally raise the knowledge level both of your customers, and of people in general.
• To convey an impression of authority or expertise, thus making a favorable impression on people and increasing the likelihood that they buy your teas.
• To draw in traffic from search engines and other sources.

Of these purposes, I would say that the first is the most important, and the last (drawing in traffic) is a mindset that is best avoided, for reasons I explain below. My recommendations for the best practices in how to include articles on your site are as follows:

• Share your unique expertise and knowledge, which leads into the next point:
• Write in detail about your particular teas and their origins.
• Avoid writing general informational / educational material about tea unless you are confident that you can write accurate articles, and that you have something unique to offer. If you aren't confident in these respects, you would do better to search and locate the best resources and link to them from your site.
• Avoid using articles to draw in traffic to your site unless you really know what you're doing.

I am going to go into more detail on some of these points.

Sharing your unique expertise and knowledge:

If you have unique or specialized knowledge about tea that is not easily available anywhere else on the internet, this unique knowledge is probably your best material to write about. Examples of such unique knowledge include experiential accounts like the detailed descriptions of remote areas of Yunnan province that you can find in The Tea Urchin, or the discussion of Chinese green teas that you can find on the Life in Teacup Blog. Another great example is Bearsblog, which offers a level of depth of knowledge about Pu-erh that can be hard to find.

For some examples of tea companies whose information I like, I find that Upton Tea Imports offers some engaging takes on the history of the tea industry in the West, in their Upton Tea Quarterly. For a completely different sort of information, check out Norbu Tea; I find their descriptions of each tea to be highly informative, offering information that is not available elsewhere, and written with a personal touch that offers opinions and perceptions without making universal claims about how the customer will experience the tea. Another company with information about their teas that leaves a very good impression on me is Red Blossom Tea.

If you read this blog, you'll notice that I'm not as knowledgeable about tea as a lot of other tea people, who have been in the industry for years, who have travelled extensively to tea producing regions, or who have tried much more tea than me. My unique strengths lie in thinking holistically, and integrating discussion of tea with discussion of ecology, food culture, culture in general, business, and health. In any one of these areas, I have little unique knowledge to offer, but I think that the breadth of my knowledge stands out, and I have a knack for relating things to each other, so I choose to focus on writing articles that integrate subjects in unusual or novel ways.

Write in detail about your particular teas and their origins:

If your company is selling tea, you want to write first and foremost about the tea that you sell. You can write about the regions your tea comes from, how the tea is produced, its characteristics of flavor, aroma, and appearance, how to brew the tea, the history or origins of the tea, or any cultural practices surrounding the tea, and anything else that makes your teas stand out from the offerings of other companies.

Here are some examples of the following sorts of articles and pages:

• What is Aracha? on the website of Obubu Tea
• The Teas of Kangra on Archive.org (originally published on the the Rare Tea Republic website, which was taken down when this brand merged into its parent company, Republic of Tea)
• What’s so Dynamic About Biodynamic Tea? on the Art of Tea's website.
  

All of these pages explain topics that are likely to be unfamiliar to a majority of tea drinkers. The pages on aracha and biodynamic tea are longer, whereas the page on the Kangra region is very brief. But all of these pages provide useful background information while highlighting something unique about the teas sold by these particular companies.

Be cautious about writing general informational or educational material about tea:

My advice, if you're going to write general informational articles about tea, is to actually do thorough research before writing them. If you don't want to do the research, don't write them. Having inaccurate articles on your site, besides spreading misinformation, can make a bad impression on potential customers (or on bloggers or webmasters who are considering linking to or helping promote your company), or, in extreme cases, even open you up to potential lawsuits.

As an example of such misinformation, here is a screenshot from an article hosted on the Republic of Tea website. I am bringing attention to this tea company, as always, because I like them as a company, and I'd like to see them update their articles to be more accurate, both because it is in their best interest, and because I want to help promote truthful and accurate information about tea.



The biggest claim that I take issue with in this article is the claim that white tea contains "virtually no caffeine". I've researched this topic extensively, citing the best scientific studies I could find, and summarized it on RateTea's page on the caffeine content of tea. What I found was that it is not possible to generalize about the caffeine content of tea based on type, and that white teas cover the full range of caffeine content from very low to very high (among teas). Furthermore, white teas made exclusively of buds, like those described here by Republic of Tea, are among the teas highest in caffeine. Unless Republic of Tea has tested their particular teas and established that their particular offerings are low in caffeine, this information is outright wrong, and even if their particular white teas all happen to be low in caffeine, the general statement made on the informational page is untrue.

This is the sort of information that, at best, makes a bad impression, and at worst, alienates customers or even opens a company up to lawsuits. As an example of how this sort of misinformation could open a company up to legal liability, even if the error made were in reality an innocent one, it would be easy to argue in court that Republic of Tea is using the claim about low caffeine to make white tea seem more appealing, and thus, to profit by making sales; the company emphasizes the claim of there being "virtually no caffeine", and presents this claim in the context of a claim that white tea is healthy. And can the false idea that white tea contains "virtually no caffeine" cause damages? Absolutely:

I once had a nasty drug interaction between an antibiotic that I was taking, and caffeine from white tea. While the interaction was not dangerous, it was extremely unpleasant, and there are other cases in which caffeine can pose dangerous and even life-threatening risks to people. In my case, I knew that white tea was not necessarily low in caffeine, and I simply under-estimated the effect that the drug I was taking had on my rate of caffeine metabolism. However, in the case that someone drank white tea thinking it had, as this article quotes, "virtually no caffeine", and the person had a dangerous reaction to the caffeine, I can imagine this sort of published misinformation opening the door to some potentially ruinous litigation. I'm not a particularly litigous person; I think lawsuits are overused, but it's a fact of American society that there are large segments of the population that are "sue happy". In the case of lawsuits, it often doesn't matter if a person wins a case, or even if they are theoretically able to win. Even the most frivolous lawsuits can be a costly headache for everyone involved, and I think as a general rule, if you run a business, you want to avoid doing anything that would make anyone even consider suing you.

I've brought the claims about caffeine content to the attention of Republic of Tea in the past, well over a year ago, and the claims still have not been taken down. This company is playing with fire by leaving an article like this, with an egregiously false claim about a topic of medical importance, up on their site. They're also missing out on the free promotion that they'd get from people who might have promoted their company through word of mouth, but who, like me, were put off by the bogus claims about white tea.

My advice to tea companies in general is that if you don't want to put in the large investment of time necessary to create accurate informational articles, you can search for and link to the best and most relevant articles. However, as with hosting your own articles, linking to articles with misinformation can also make you look bad. If you don't know how to identify accurate sources and want to learn how to do so, Wikipedia's guidelines on identifying reliable sources might be a good place to start.

Even if you don't ever want to write informational articles, I think that improving your ability to distinguish truth from falsehood is a worthwhile endeavor for everyone to undertake. You'll be developing a critical life skill that can benefit not only your business, but virtually every aspect of your life, including your health, finances, social relationships, hobbies, competence as a parent, etc.

Avoid using articles to draw in traffic to your site:

Some people may be tempted to add articles on tea to their website selling tea as a way of drawing in new customers, through people who search for general information on tea. As someone who runs an informational tea website, I have a lot of data about people's behavior when arriving to websites through web search. There are two reasons that the information business is unlikely to pay off for online tea retailers: one, it is extremely competitive, and two, it does not reach the users most interested in buying tea.

On competitiveness, ranking high in internet searches for informational searches related to tea put you into competition with big-name sites like Wikipedia, and, for health-related topics, sites like Mayo Clinic and WebMD, all three of which your tea company is unlikely to ever outrank. Occasionally, high-quality pages from NIH or well-known universities will also show up; your articles are unlikely to ever outrank these articles in searches as well. Slightly less authoritative sites like About.com also have extensive articles on tea, and these sites are still hard to outrank, especially for smaller companies whose websites are unlikely to have much clout.

On the second point, the intention of a web user, while hard to directly measure, is of critical importance in any sort of website. As an example, RateTea receives a tremendous amount of traffic to its informational articles; however, these users are extremely unlikely to explore (let alone use) the rating and review feature of the website. One of the big draws to RateTea is the article on the caffeine content of tea. However, users who enter the site through this article rarely explore the site. The users more likely to participate actively on the site are those who arrive by typing terms like "tea ratings" into search engines.

From the perspective of a tea company, people who search for informational content related to tea are much less likely to buy tea than people who search for tea to buy. There may be a way to make the business model of drawing in customers through informational articles work, but it is highly unpredictable and requires exceptional cleverness, so it is not a strategy you can rely on.

In summary:

A lot of what I said in this post can be summarized by the guideline to write about the topics most directly related to what your company does, and the topics you know the most about, rather than just writing about tea in general. Informational articles can both help or harm your business, and which of these happens depends on whether you write from your area of expertise or whether you venture too far outside it.

Obsessive-Compulsive Tea Shopping, and Unity in Addictions

I just discovered an interesting discussion thread on Steepster, How do you stop the compulsion to buy buy BUY more tea?!, through a post on the Life in Teacup Blog how to deal with obsessive tea shopping... . This got me thinking about addictions in general, and I decided I wanted to write on the topic here.



Pictured here is some heroin, an illegal drug that can be highly addictive. Addiction, including addiction to hard drugs like heroin, is something I have thought about for a long time; when I was in high school, someone on the periphery of my social circle died of a heroin overdose.

This post is only tangentially related to tea, but I think it is an important topic, and I hope people find it useful.

If you were thinking initially of compulsive shopping, and are shocked by my leap to heroin, you may think I am exaggerating. But I hope that if you bear with me, you will find that my analogy has an interesting reason behind it, and the reason is not to shock or exaggerate. And, after explaining myself, I will conclude the post with a suggestion of how to overcome compulsive tea shopping.

There is unity in addictions:

I personally believe that there is unity in addictions, in the sense that, whether a person is suffering from compulsive shopping, unhealthy behavior in sex or relationships, drug addiction, compulsive gambling, self-injury, video game addiction, or anything else, the person is suffering not just from a specific form of addiction, but from a general state of addiction. All forms of addiction have in common that a person's self-control is not strong enough that they are able to choose long-term benefits over short-term behaviors that produce some sort of immediate mental reward or stimulation.

There is some science that is beginning to confirm the idea that different types of addiction have a lot in common, in terms of what is going on with the brain. I also find it interesting that twelve step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous, and other similar programs, have been developed not only to help with alcoholism, but with a variety of other sorts of addictions, and these different programs have basically the same approach. The approach begins with admitting that the people have a problem with addiction, and that self-control is inadequate. In terms of my understanding of addiction, I would say that these programs work because they change a person's beliefs (the step of believing that one has an addiction and choosing to want to overcome it is a critical one) as well as providing a network of social support.

My experience with addiction:

Addiction is not something I discuss from afar; I personally have had problems with video game addiction, and it got bad enough that I deleted all video games from my computer years ago. I could spend hours playing role playing games and neglecting all sorts of other activities. More recently, I have struggled with addictive behavior towards social media and online communication media such as Facebook and gchat. I have also seen people close to me struggle with alcoholism, self-injury, and unhealthy patterns in relationships. One of my friends found a twelve step program helpful for overcoming problems with codependency in relationships, and I have seen people overcome alcoholism while others have failed to overcome it.

Some interesting resources on addiction:

If you're interested in this topic, NPR has recently had a number of programs (and published articles) on this topic. One that I found a particularly interesting read was Addiction Is Not A Disease Of The Brain. Wikipedia's article on addiction is also well-developed and has a lot of interesting and relevant material on it. The overall picture I get by reading different materials on the topic of addiction though is that addiction is complex and involves many factors, including brain chemistry, actions, habits, and life choices, social networks and relationships with people, and beliefs about the effects of various actions.

My thoughts on how to overcome addiction:

Some people "overcome" one addiction only to fall into another. I think that this is not a true victory over addiction...truly overcoming addiction involves overcoming the whole state of addiction, in which someone seeks some sort of immediate gratification through some sort of impulsive activity. The question of which activity is more harmful is often a relative one. Playing video games may seem relatively benign when compared to heroin use, but a true video game addiction, in which a person spends hours every day playing video games, and neglecting their job, school, health, or significant other, could actually be more destructive to a person's life than someone trying heroin once and never using it again.

I think that the best model for overcoming addiction is a holistic approach, one that aims to help a person reach a healthy state in which they are thinking and acting based on the long-run rather than immediate gratification. I think that an essential part of this is feeling happy and content in the moment. Addiction is all about satisfying immediate cravings; if you are consistently able to enjoy the moment without engaging in any of your addictive vices, and, without these activities, you can feel like you have everything you need in the short-term, then you have overcome addiction. I find mindfulness exercises like meditation, or the appreciation of subtle pleasures to have a positive effect on this whole process. A lot of people use addiction to run away from their problems...difficult situations, feelings, or memories they don't want to confront. It is hard to overcome addiction if you genuinely believe that your life is in ruin, as you will feel that you have nothing to lose, but if you feel like your life is worthwhile and in order, your willpower will be greatly increased. At least, that's how I view things.

How to overcome compulsive tea shopping:

I find it ironic that people suffer from compulsive tea shopping, as for me, tea is something that is associated with mindfulness, taking a break in my day to focus both on the act of preparing a cup of tea, and on the aromas, flavors, and other sensations while drinking a cup of tea, or my company when sharing tea with others. So perhaps a remedy for compulsive tea shopping would be to spend more time enjoying the tea. If you're truly enjoying what you have, you don't need any more, right?

What do you think?

Have you had any personal experiences with addiction, either mild or severe, that you are comfortable sharing in the comments? Do you think there's much truth in the "unity in addiction" view that I put forth here? What do you think about my suggestions of how to overcome addiction?

Tea And Gender Roles: Gendered Marketing

Some time ago I read a post by Tony Gebely, titled Tea: Not Just For Girls (now only available on archive.org). Tony writes about how there is a widespread perception in American society that tea is associated with "tea parties", a phenomenon that is associated with women or girls, but that in the tea business and industry, and among people who view tea as a serious interest or hobby, men are actually more well-represented than women. Lahikmajoe has also written about this topic, in the post add tea preparation to her feminine wiles.

This is a topic I actually have been wanting to write about for some time, because it's a topic that I feel strongly about, and that strikes a personal note for me.

My experience with gender roles:

When I was a child, I remember my reaction to gender roles: I thought they were stupid. I saw no good reasons for them, and I would react negatively whenever I saw someone, whether an adult or another kid, telling someone that it was not appropriate for them to play with a certain toy or act a certain way because that toy or activity or action was "for girls" or "for boys" or made them look or seem "like a boy" or "like a girl". As a kid, I asked "Why?" a lot, and no one ever gave me a good reason for the way some people considered it good for boys to act a certain way and girls a different way, and why some people considered it bad to cross that line.



As a kid, I consciously sought out toys that I saw as gender-neutral, like legos. I remember finding both Barbie and G.I. Joe unappealing because they were clearly presented as only being for one sex.

In most ways, I conformed to gender roles. I did not want to be a girl, dress like a girl, or play with dolls or other toys that society seemed to view as "for girls". But I reacted negatively to the idea of being told what to do, how to act, with respect to gender roles. And I noticed that the people I liked most were ones who often did not conform fully to gender roles. A lot of my friends were tomboyish girls, and boys who were interested in the social dynamics of adults. And the role models and authority figures I was most comfortable with were ones that I never saw enforce gender roles, but who treated children (and adults) consistently regardless of their sex.

I also remember feeling angry when people would tell me stories of sexism, mostly older adults telling me about times in their past when women were not given the same options or respect given to men. I also remember identifying this sort of sexism, mentally, with people enforcing gender roles negatively on boys. In some cases, in cases where I overstepped a cultural gender boundary, I remember being called homophobic epithets, or hearing such epithets hurled at other boys. Both of these forms of sexism, to me as a young child, seemed stupid and completely unnecessary.

Now, looking back as an adult, I think that I had gender roles pretty well figured out as a kid--my childhood reaction to resist gender roles and distrust people who tried to enforce them was normal and healthy.

How to handle gender roles constructively?

Certain activities tend to be populated more by men or boys whereas others are populated more by women or girls. And it's fine for things to turn out this way. Humans have certain innate biological differences, which include differences in abilities, strengths, weaknesses, tendencies, likes and dislikes, and a whole variety of other attributes. There's nothing wrong with having more men or more women naturally fill certain roles in society.

The problem is when we start introducing negativity and coercion into the social structure of society, when people deviate from those roles. There's no problem if a certain profession tends to attract one sex or another. The problem is when someone stepping into an uncommon field for their sex results in negative stigma. The problem is negativity and judgment, and coercion--when people exercise sexism in hiring practices, in promotion or assigning salaries, or when people belittle, insult, or harm others, whether adults or children, who deviate from gender norms.

I also have a problem with people making normative statements or telling people, directly, or by implication, what they "should" do. We all know that I dislike the word should. When people say that boys "should" like certain things or girls "should" like other things, or worse, that they "should" not like certain things...or that certain toys are activities are for boys or girls, or worse, that they are not for boys or not for girls....I think that's overstepped a boundary...it's no longer just a natural gender tendency, but it's become a damaging, constraining social norm.

Sometimes there are reasons for limiting the membership of a group to one sex. Certain discussion groups or book clubs may focus on women's issues or men's issues, and may want to create a safe environment where people can bring up issues that they may be afraid to talk about around the opposite sex. But creating a group limited to one sex is not the same as enforcing gender roles coercively. I feel comfortable with people choosing to form single-sex groups, because this is a consensual activity, something people agree to participate in. Gender norms are not something people consent to; rather, they are imposed on people, and this is where I have a problem with them.

Back to tea: gender in marketing:

Gender roles also appear in marketing, sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly. There are whole stores and brands oriented exclusively or primarily towards men or towards women, and there are even a few examples of this in the tea industry.



Above is a screenshot from ManTeas, which strikes me as more of a parody than a serious marketing effort. Yes, the logo really is that bad. But, ManTeas doesn't really bug me...if anything, it seems to me to be making fun of both the association of tea culture with femininity, and our cultural ideas of masculinity as well. My only disappointment with ManTeas is that I don't see any sign of recent activity on their website...does anyone know if they are still operating?

But...back to the topic of serious marketing. Outside of the parodies, and the relatively milder cases, I hate advertising that is specifically oriented towards men or women. I'm not talking about a company or product that naturally appeals more to women or to men. I'm talking about advertising for normally gender-free products that is unambiguously oriented only towards one gender (and is completely serious about itself). When it comes to this sort of marketing, I absolutely hate it, with a passion. Here is an example of some of this sort of marketing, a screenshot from one of my favorite companies, Lego:



There's so much about this marketing that I find objectionable. I already don't like the idea of separating lego sets into ones "for boys" and "for girls", but the way this is executed is troubling to me in further ways. It strikes a personal note because it threatens to turn one of my favorite gender-neutral toys from childhood into a strongly-gendered one. And I don't like the identification of the label "friends" with a toy marketed for girls only--and the associated implication that friendship is something "for girls". Like I said above, I have always found interpersonal relationships fascinating, and even as a kid, was drawn to boys who were more socially-oriented. And, over the years, most of my friends have been girls.

And look at the shape of the girls' bodies used in the marketing material...they all look pretty thin to me. While some girls might naturally be this thin, these bodies do not reflect the full range of natural body types of healthy girls. Marketing and toys are definitely linked to body image...if you're skeptical, read What Barbie does for a little girl's body image - this sort of marketing is a contributing factor to eating disorders.

This sort of issue also hits close to home for me; I have had a number of close friends who have suffered from eating disorders, including Anorexia nervosa and Bulimia. And I just don't understand it...women with a broad range of body types can be beautiful. Why can't marketing material reflect the natural diversity of the human body?

Back to tea:

As usual, I've gotten a bit off the topic of tea; I now have two headings in this post titled "back to tea". Does the tea industry use gendered marketing that plays into negative body image issues for women? Unfortunately, yes. One thing that I see most often, oriented towards women, is the weight loss marketing fad, used to sell green tea, oolong, Pu-erh, or blends including various herbs. Here's an example from Teavana:



The words "guilt-free, slimful beauty inside" occur in the description of this tea. Needless to say, I don't have the most positive reaction to this marketing. And I really wish Teavana would retire this tea, or at least rename it, and ditch this aspect of the description.

In summary:

Women and men are not the same...they never have been and they never will be. But there are problems when we enforce gender roles in ways that are coercive or negative. There are also problems with strongly-gendered marketing. One primary issue in gendered marketing is marketing oriented towards women which promotes a negative body image. In the tea industry, this sort of marketing is primarily oriented in terms of faddish associations between tea and weight loss, or "detox" teas.

What do you think?

How did you feel about gender roles as a child? How do you feel about them now? Do you agree with my criticisms of the marketing here, or do you think I'm being overly harsh?

The Benefits of Mindfulness - And An NPR Program

Mindfulness is one topic that I like to write about, and one that comes up frequently in the context of tea culture. Wikipedia has good, separate pages on mindfulness in Buddhism and mindfulness in modern psychology; the two concepts are not identical, but overlap quite a lot.



A mindful state is not characterized by a straight, narrow, or perfect focus; it is more like this zigzagging path, straying a bit from side to side, and being full of distractions and imperfections, yet having a clear direction.

A little over a month ago, I listened to a program on NPR's Science Friday about mindfulness, called Be Here Now: Meditation For The Body And Brain, which contains an interview with one of the authors of a book called Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World. Although this program does not mention tea, it explicitly mentions food a number of times, talking about how, as people get caught up in fast-paced lifestyles, they often stop paying attention to how their food tastes. If you are interested in mindfulness, you might really enjoy the program.

In case you don't have time or aren't interested in listening to it (I'm often not in the mood for listening to radio programs or podcasts when I'm reading blogs), a brief summary of some of the key points that I took from it are as follows:

• Many of us, in our society, have very fast-paced lives, and go through much of our days on "autopilot", preoccupied with worries, and often not paying much attention to the moment, which includes both paying attention to the thoughts going through our heads, and paying attention to physical sensations, like those in our body, or the flavor and aroma of the food and drink we consume.


• A lack of mindfulness corresponds to a continually heightened stress response in the body, including changes in the relative activity of different regions of the brain. This can put us at increased risk of depression, and can exacerbate or directly cause psychological disorders such as generalized anxiety disorder.


• Simple exercises in mindfulness, such as paying attention to the sensations in our body, our senses, and the thoughts in our mind, can promote a more mindful state of being in our lives. Even a few minutes a day spent meditating in a certain way can produce profound changes in mind and body.


• When in a more mindful state, we actually become more productive, and we also have greatly improved capacity for empathy.

This summary represents my understanding of the program, not necessarily the views of the people hosted on it. But I found that overall, the program strongly resonated with my experiences.

If you ever feel busy, stressed, overwhelmed with worry or anxiety, or if you have trouble with depression, agitated mood, or irritability, I think you might benefit from listening to this program. I found it very helpful and informative.

Tea Tree Oil - Not Related to Tea, But Interesting On Its Own

In my recent top 5 post, I noted that tea tree oil was the number two search result starting with "tea". I actually just bought some tea tree oil, and, although it is not related to tea in any way other than by name, I thought, having had it come up on my blog as well as finding its way into my medicine cabinet, it would be worth writing about.



Tea tree oil, shown above, is colorless and watery, with a slightly herbal, anti-septic sort of odor. Although it is called an oil, it mixes more readily with water or alcohol than with true oils.

What exactly is "tea tree oil"?

Tea tree oil refers to the essential oil of a plant, Melaleuca alternifolia, which is in the Myrtle family, related to lemon myrtle, but not closely related to the tea plant, not even in the same order. Wikipedia has a good article on tea tree oil as well as an article on the species.

Uses of tea tree oil:

Tea tree oil is used primarily as an antiseptic. It has antibacterial and antifungal properties, which have been well-established through scientific study, and it also has antiviral properties. It can also be used against infections caused by parasites, such as mites or lice.



There is solid science backing many of these uses, and the oil has been found to be as effective as a number of synthetic drugs; the Wikipedia article has numerous links to scientific studies, and google scholar turns up a lot more (thousands of results) than can be found on that page. The chemical responsible for many of tea tree oil's antimicrobial properties is called Terpinen-4-ol; this chemical, pictured above, is also present in other plants, and is the main component of the essential oil of nutmeg.

Points of caution when using tea tree oil:

Tea tree oil is toxic if eaten or taken internally. This issue is especially a matter of concern for pets, as many pets groom themselves (involving licking) and can poison themselves by licking an area of their skin to which tea tree oil has been applied. A certain portion of people react allergically or with skin irritation to its application. When I purchased this product, it came with a sensible warning to, before using it, apply a small amount of oil to a healthy test area on the forearm, and wait 24 hours to assess whether you have a reaction.

Why did I buy it?

One thing that I have been doing, gradually, over the course of many years, is phasing out the use of synthetic chemicals in personal care products, and replacing them with natural products. There are compelling reasons to use natural products over synthetic products, both from a personal health perspective, and from the perspective of environmental sustainability.

Herbal products tend to be safer (although this is not always the case) than synthetic drugs:

In terms of health, a lot of natural products are much safer than synthetic drugs, at the doses required to be similarly effective. This safety can be measured in terms of lower rates of side effects and toxicity. I see this pattern all the time in the course of researching herbs on RateTea, such as hibiscus, which is as effective as, and much safer than, certain prescription anti-hypertensive medications. (RateTea, in case you have not noticed, has a growing collection of articles on specific herbal teas, with extensive sections on the health and medicinal properties of a number of herbs.) The body of scientific research for most herbs is smaller than the body of scientific research on most drugs, in part because of the absence of the profit motive, and in part because of a historical (and hopefully, waning) focus in Western society on synthetic drugs. However, as time goes on, the body of research supporting herbal products is continually growing, and we are learning more about their safety and efficacy. Tea tree oil is one product which has been fairly well-studied, and is considerably safer than a number of other topical antimicrobial agents.

Synthetic drugs can be persistent in the environment and damage ecosystems:

Synthetic drugs, including common over-the-counter ones, can be persistent in the environment. For example, clotrimazole, a common ingredient in over-the-counter antifungal creams, and triclosan, a common anti-microbial agent used in many personal care products, have been found to act together as marine pollutants, harming communities of microalgae and disrupting aquatic ecosystems. I picked these two examples because they are typically used for the same purposes as tea tree oil, so the natural oil would make a good alternative or substitute to these products. Incidentally, these two synthetic drugs are not without concerns about their safety and impacts on health.

Naturally occurring chemicals are not always safer or less persistent, but as a general trend, they tend to be more likely to break down. Part of this is because naturally-occurring chemicals have existed for years, so organisms have already evolved ways to break them down.

What do you think?

Have you ever used tea tree oil, or any products containing it? Do you have any opinion on it or any relevant experiences to share? Do you think about the persistence of chemicals in the environment when choosing what sorts of products to buy? Do you make an effort to use natural products in place of synthetic drugs wherever possible?

Surface Area, Tea, Food, Physics: Do We Misuse The Word "Superficial"?

This post is about surface area, both as it pertains to tea, to food, and to everything about our world. In our culture, we use language in such a way that implies that, when dealing with anything, it's what's really inside that matters. Phrases like "on the surface", or the word "superficial" (which just means on the surface) are used to describe phenomena that are somehow more fleeting or transient, less reflective of true reality, and less important than things that are "deep", "on the inside", or "at the core" of something.



Diagram by Cmglee, used under CC BY-SA 3.0.

This post provides some powerful examples that demonstrate that this way of looking at things is not always valid. The world, both on a human level, and a fundamental physical level, does not always work in the way that the the word "superficial" suggests. The surface, or the boundary of a region, is often where the most interesting things are happening, and this phenomenon is widespread at all levels in our universe.

Surface and Boundary in Biology:

Anyone who has studied microbiology will undoubtedly be familiar with the cell membrane. Cell membranes, a double layer of nonpolar (oily) and polar (like water) substances creates a barrier which separates the interior of a cell from the outside world. Complex channels exist in these membranes to allow a living cell to control what passes through its walls, and structures attach to the membrane to allow it to interact with the outside world. A large portion of biological research focuses on the cell membrane or the various proteins and structures that exist within it.



Tea And Surface Area:

The surface area of tea leaf is of critical importance in determining how the tea infuses in water. The infusion of the tea's flavor and chemicals into the water happens at the surface of the leaf, so increasing the surface area will make the tea infuse more quickly.

The following is a photo of Imperial Tea Garden's Moon Swirl White Tip, a green tea from Hunan province. The complex curls and folds of the leaf provide greater surface area than the small, tightly rolled pellets suggest.



Breaking up the tea leaf increases the surface area, thus making the tea infuse faster. Finely-broken tea, like fannings and dust, have the highest surface area to volume ratio, and thus infuse fastest. On the other hand, whole-leaf tea with thick, tough leaves has the highest surface area to volume ratio, and thus infuses slowest of all, considerably slower than whole-leaf tea with thinner, more delicate leaves.

Thinking about surface area also helps us to understand the infusion behavior of flavored teas as compared to pure teas. When flavoring is added in the form of extracts or essential oils, the flavoring is added to the surface of the leaf. While some of the flavor may permeate deeper into the leaf, it is concentrated on the surface. The flavoring thus infuses very quickly. This is why flavored teas often have the strongest aroma of their "flavor" in the first infusion, and then taste more like tea in subsequent infusions.

Food, Surface Area, and Nutrition:

Surface area is relevant in food and nutrition as well. The skin of fruits and vegetables tend to be richer in vitamins, minerals, and proteins than the interior. Although not all fruit and vegetables have edible skin, the ones that do often have remarkably more nutritional value in their skin. As an example, let's look at the potato:

The USDA Nutrient Database tells us that 100 grams of baked potato skins have 4 grams of protein, 8 grams of fiber, and 39% RDA of Iron. 100 grams of baked potato flesh, on the other hand, while slightly less caloric (probably because they contain more water), only contains 2% of Iron, 2 grams of protein, and 1 gram of fiber. Baked potatos are not a good example for comparing Vitamin C content because the skin of the potato is exposed to more heat than the interior, so, although the skin is richer in Vitamin C, baked potato skins have similar vitamin C content. This is just an example. In some fruits, such as apples, the skin contains much more vitamin C by weight than the flesh. Moral of the story: don't peel your fruits and vegetables.



This blue potato has a lumpy shape, increasing its surface-area per unit volume. Buying lumpy, irregularly-shaped varieties of fruit can actually lead to better nutrition by adding more surface area. Similarly, buying small fruits also has the same effect.

Surface Area And Information in Quantum Physics:

There is some relatively recent work in quantum physics that has suggested a most peculiar result: it is possible that the amount of information that can be stored in a region of space is bounded not by its volume, but by its surface area. If you're a physicist, you can find the original paper here: Operational view of the holographic information bound, published in Physics Review D, Vol. 82, No. 12, 2010.

Doesn't it sound bizarre and counterintuitive? In other words, imagine a filing cabinet. The amount of information you can put in the cabinet depends not on the space inside the cabinet, but on the amount of area on the walls of the cabinet.

What does all this mean?

The point is...the phenomenon of the surface being more important than the inside of something, and the surface area being more important than volume for various practical reasons, is a phenomenon that appears again and again at all levels of our world: with tea, with food, with microbiology, and with the very fundamental laws of physics at the smallest possible scales.

So next time someone describes something as superficial, stop to think...maybe they're actually describing the things that really matter in life.

How Into Tea Are You? How Is Being Into Dance Like Being Into Tea?

Lately I've been thinking a lot about my level of depth, interest, and focus, in various aspects of my life. A discussion on the Tea Trade Forums led me to an LA Times story on rare tea enthusiasts, which sparked some of this thought. When I first started working on RateTea, I was interested in tea, but was early on in the process of learning about it. Now, I know a fair amount about tea, having spent a few years researching it in a fairly intense manner, sampling different teas, and becoming tied into the tea industry in various ways. But I would not consider myself a tea expert, and I regularly encounter people who know far more about tea than I do, and perhaps more importantly, who are more into tea.

These people are more excited about tea than me. Tea is their passion. I will be the first to admit, tea is not my passion. Yes, that's right, I'm not that into tea. Just how much am I into tea? I'm into tea in much the same way I'm into dance. Here is a picture of one of the styles of dance that I like to do regularly, called lindy hop, a type of swing dance. This photo was taken at Rittenhop, an event run by the Lindy and Blues organization, whose tuesday night dances I nearly always attend:



There are some people who are really into dance: they dance many nights a week, and on weekends they frequently travel to various big dance weekends, which include weekends focusing on workshops and dance lessons, as well as those focused on social dancing. Some of the people with the highest level of enthusiasm for the dance scene will lose a lot of sleep at these events, and between their work and dance, they have little room for other hobbies and social activities.

When I dance too much:

There is such a thing as too much dance. I have gone to physical therapy twice for dance-related injuries, and they were both not acute injuries, but rather, injuries associated with chronic over-use. I've stayed up later than I normally would because of dance, and felt bad and off-kilter for the following day or two. And I've had moments when I realized that my whole social life revolved around the dance scene, and that I felt a strong need to diversify my social circles. And I cut back from dance and diversified my life in all of these circumstances.


I'm more interested in balance in my life. I like dance not for its own sake, but because I like the exercise and the social interaction, I like the sort of community of quirky, intelligent, creative people that the dance scene attracts, and I like the dance form as something that can be a source of creativity and inspiration in my life. I like dance because it produces good results in my life. But I am not interested in attending every big dance weekend, not even every one in my own city. I do not care about being the "best" dancer (if there is such a thing), and I do not feel like I'm missing out if I miss a major dance event. I value my sleep, I value having a broad range of hobbies, and I value having a diverse social life. I want to dance only to the degree that it enhances, rather than detracts from the other elements of my life.

My interest in tea:

My interest in tea is similar. I like tea not for its own sake, but I like tea because I like how it tastes, and how it makes me feel. I like the effect that drinking tea has on my life. And I like the effect that paying attention to how tea tastes, and learning about where my tea comes from, has on my life.

However, I am not interested in getting so focused on tea that it would detract from other elements of my life. For example, I'm not interested in drinking so much tea that I have trouble sleeping because of the caffeine, and I'm not interested in spending so much money on tea that it takes away in any substantial way from money that could be better put to use elsewhere. And I'm not interested in thinking or learning so much about tea and where my tea comes from, that I start thinking less about my food and where it comes from.

My interest in tea fits in a holistic way into my life. And at times, I find myself obsessing over tea, and I realize this is too much, and I need to hold back.

What I want to encourage in others:

I want to encourage this approach in others. I want people to become interested in tea, not to become interested in tea for its own sake, but so that they start paying more attention to food and drink in general. I want people to start listening to their bodies and raising awareness of their mind and bodies through paying attention to how tea makes them feel. I want people to drink tea with others and to take a break in their day to enjoy tea, and I want people to see the mental and emotional and spiritual benefits of taking these sorts of breaks.

And I think this is a good general rule to follow, when asking yourself how interested you want to be in something. Is your interest in this one thing making your life as a whole better? If so, then keep being that interested or more interested. If your interest is detracting from your life as a whole, by taking away from other aspects of your life, then scale back. This point will be different for different people. But I'm about at that point for tea. I'm not interested in being any more interested in tea, nor any less interested; I'm content where I am.

How about you?

Hibiscus Tea (Roselle) - Flor de Jamaica & Lowering Blood Pressure

I usually tend to write about teas, herbs, and other beverages that I especially like, but this time I thought I'd share one that I do not particularly like, although a large number of others seem to love it. And while I may not like it, I find it very interesting because of the overwhelming scientific evidence that it can be effective at treating high blood pressure. This drink is hibiscus tea, an herbal tea made from the calyces (sepals) of the roselle plant (Hibiscus sabdariffa). Pictured here is an iced glass of this beverage:



Hibiscus tea goes by many names, in part because it is widely consumed in so many different countries and cultures. In Egypt, this drink is often referred to as karkadé(كَركَديه‎) which is just Arabic for hibiscus, and in much of Latin America it is called Jamaica, short for agua de flor de Jamaica.



The picture above shows the roselle plant, used to produce this herb. It is widely cultivated in hot, tropical climates, such as Egypt and Nigeria. On RateTea, you can find listings of different sources of hibiscus, including both tea companies selling it as an herbal tea, and herb companies selling it as a bulk herb.

Why I don't like hibiscus: sourness, cooked vegetable aroma:

Hibiscus produces the most sour herbal infusion of any herb that I've tried. It is even more sour than many fruits. Because of its intense sour flavor, it is often blended with other herbs, and, whether it is consumed on its own, or in blends, it is typically sweetened, often heavily so. I tend not to like sour qualities, and hibiscus is over the top on the sourness for me.

I also am not crazy about the aroma of hibiscus. In some respects its aroma is rather fruity or berry-like, and I like these qualities, but I also find that it has a strong cooked vegetable or cooked fruit aroma, much like what your home will smell like if you've been making large quantities of jam. I find this smell mildly unpleasant, and this is another reason I'm not a fan of hibiscus.

But you may love it...I find that most people like both sourness and jam more than I do!

Hibiscus is a common ingredient in herbal blends and flavored teas:

Even if you may not be aware of it, it is highly likely that you actually have consumed hibiscus in some form or another. Hibiscus is one of the most common ingredients in herbal teas, including the Celestial Seasonings Zinger® series, where it serves both to impart a deep purple-red color, and to add sourness to a blend. As you can expect, I don't particularly like these blends. The only mainstream commercial blend that contains hibiscus as a main ingredient, that I actually enjoy, is Bigelow's Sweet Dreams. Hibiscus is also sometimes blended with tea; I've tried a black tea blend with hibiscus; I wasn't a huge fan of it.

Hibiscus and Hypertension (High Blood Pressure):

I've researched a fair amount about the medicinal uses and health properties of various herbs, and hibiscus was one herb that stood out in that it has an overwhelming amount of strong evidence supporting its efficacy for treating a specific, rather serious health condition: hypertension (or high blood pressure). Not only has hibiscus been found to be effective at lowering blood pressure in multiple controlled clinical trials, but it has even been compared to a number of different prescription antihypertensive drugs, and it was found to be as effective as one of them. Furthermore, unlike prescription medications used to treat hypertension, hibiscus was found to have a complete absence of strong or serious side effects. As something that has been widely consumed as a beverage for hundreds of years, it seems absurd that people would take one of these medications without first trying hibiscus, especially in cases of milder hypertension. If you want citations to these studies you can find citations and some more detailed discussion of these studies on RateTea's page on hibiscus tea.

One of my motivations for sharing this post is to get the word out about hibiscus. Hypertension is a widespread problem in America, and most of us probably know at least a few people who are suffering from this condition. It certainly cannot hurt to try regularly drinking a few cups of this herb to lower your blood pressure before trying out a potentially riskier prescription drug. If you choose to drink it in herbal tea form, however, be careful about how much sugar you add, as high-sugar diets can contribute to or worsen hypertension.

Hibiscus may also have some other health properties, although these have been less extensively studied, and only have suggestive support, mostly from animal studies. These properties include an antipyretic (fever-lowering) effect, protection against liver damage, and lowering of cholesterol.

Do you like hibiscus?

I'd be curious to hear from other people...do you feel similarly about this herb as I do, or do you actually enjoy it? Did you know about these studies on hypertension? Would you take an herb like this one, before taking prescription medication?

Aesthetics: What Purposes Do They Serve?

This post is inspired by a discussion on the Tea Trade Forums about the new East India Company, in which we began talking about whether or not luxury and idealism are necessarily at odds with each other. The general sentiment seemed to be that, to a degree, they are. But this post is not directly about that...it's about aesthetics.

In the discussion, David Gall posted a comment about how he appreciates beautiful objects, whether it be handmade art or well-designed electronics (he gives Apple computer as an example). I certainly think that aesthetics and beauty have great value, both for me and in general.



Some things, like sunsets, seem to be nearly universally appreciated as beautiful. But aesthetic senses, the sense of what things are beautiful, also vary hugely from person to person and culture to culture. One thing I think about a lot is the degree to which our aesthetic sense is culturally constructed, and can be changed. I like to think critically about aesthetics, and ask the question:

What effect is our aesthetic sense having on our lives, on our society, and on our environment?

Aesthetics produce real-world results:

Aesthetics are by no means superficial...they impact nearly all choices we make in life, from which products we choose to buy, to which streets or roads we choose to drive or walk on, to where we choose to live, to which clothes we put on in the morning. And, although some of us may not fully admit it, they also impact which people we choose to associate with. Many of the ways in which aesthetics shape our lives are subconscious...we make decisions to choose one thing over another, and these are sometimes major choices that impact our lives and the lives of other people as well.

An example of aesthetics having ecological impact:

One of the aspects of modern society in which subjective and highly variable aesthetics can have far-reaching ecological impacts is that of the grassy lawn. Pictured here are two patches of grass or lawn in Bryn Athyn, PA. The first:



And the second:



I chose these two photos because they are about as directly contrasting as you can get, at least, in Bryn Athyn at this time of year. Which is more attractive to you? The top picture is more lush and vibrant; the bottom picture is more barren looking, but shows greater diversity, both of color (with the two different flowering plants), and biodiversity. If you know me at all, you'll know that I prefer the aesthetics of the second picture.

When choosing something like which tea to drink, our aesthetic sense is mainly a question of personal taste. But in the case of these two pictures of patches of grass, there are actual impacts of choosing one aesthetic over the other. The top picture depicts an unnatural lawn, heavily treated with chemicals to maintain both a lush green color and a monoculture of one plant (and you know how I feel about monocultures). The chemically-intensive maintenance of this lawn has negative consequences on the environment, and even on humans--that lawn is actually on the campus of Bryn Athyn College, in an area where people often walk barefoot, thus exposing themselves to whatever chemicals were sprayed on the grass.

The second picture of grass, an untreated area, has much greater biodiversity, not to mention that it is less resource-intensive to maintain. More biodiversity means greater ecological value, and most importantly, there are none of the negative impacts associated with using herbicides, pesticides, and synthetic fertilizers. It looks a little bleak if you're used to the aesthetic in the first picture, but there's beauty hiding in the bleakness...the photo is taken during April, after all. If you are at all familiar with Pennsylvania's climate and ecology, you'll know that Pennsylvania does not naturally have lush, light-green colors year-round. April is a time in-between the browns and grays of winter, and the lush green foliage of spring...plants are beginning to bloom, but there's still a lot of brown and gray about. I personally find it beautiful.



This final photo shows a polluted stretch of the Delaware river, viewed from National Park, New Jersey, to remind us that, just as chemicals wash off and flow downstream, our actions flow into consequences. Fertilizers and chemicals used on lawns and in agriculture and industry kill wild animals, devastate ecosystems, contribute to cancer and other chronic diseases in humans, and destroy fishing industries downstream. This stretch of the Delaware river could be pristine; there could be abundant fish here, and it could be safe to eat these fish. In our current world, it is not.

Imagine what it could be like. And now:

You can choose your aesthetic sense:

You can choose which of the two pictures of grassy lawn to prefer. In this case, it's not a matter of personal taste. Choose the second one.