Did you know that green tea can help fight baldness? An intriguing plug for green tea shampoo lists many benefits for your hair — but ultimately suggests that the same effects can be had just from drinking green tea! See
http://neutral-izer.blogspot.com/2009/11/wash-your-hair-with-green-tea-and.html
And here is a good recent blog on the health benefits of tea:
http://vskelio.edublogs.org/2009/11/17/miracle-cup-the-health-benefits-of-green-tea/
This from yesterday’s China Post/Asia News Network:
“TAIPEI, Taiwan – The Oolong tea variety sold at the National Palace Museum (NPM) has been found to contain two toxic pesticides by toxicity tests, according to the results of tests done on teas sold in the NPM that were revealed yesterday by the Taipei City health department.
Health inspectors found 0.12 ppm of Flufenoxuron and 0.16 ppm of Ethion in a randomly selected sample of oolong tea with an expiration date of Sept. 15, 2011 distributed by iTea.
Flufenoxuron is a carcinogen, and prolonged exposure to Ethion may cause neural damages. Regulations do not allow for any trace of either toxin to be present in tea products.
Quickly responding to the findings, the museum has dissolved its contract with iTea and will return all of its iTea products in inventory at NPM, Feng Ming-chu, deputy director of NPM announced.”
http://news.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Asia/Story/A1Story20091117-180501.html
The flu season is here, and every day we get reports about the risks associated with the H1N1 virus, about the vaccines available, and the precautions recommended to the public. Green tea, and tea generally, figures prominently in advice columns. Writing for a website on women’s health, Nurse Practitioner Marcelle Pick reports: “Green tea extracts rich in epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), the major polyphenol in tea, have been shown to have antiviral effects against influenza A virus (seasonal flu) in the laboratory, and EGCG and its relatives are considered to be the likely source of this effect. In another recent study on mice, EGCG demonstrated strong effects against the H1N1 virus in particular. The exterior surfaces of influenza viruses are covered with protein-dense knobs responsible for binding to the cells being infected. Studies on EGCG suggest one way it inhibits the virus’s infectivity is by binding to these knobs so as to “preoccupy” them, actually altering the physical properties of the viral membrane” (http://www.womentowomen.com/inflammation/foods-immunityandrespiratoryhealth.aspx).
Green tea may even reduce the risk of pneumonia in women: “Drinking five or more cups a day cut the risk by ‘47 percent in Japanese women, but not Japanese men,’ Ikue Watanabe, from Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine in Sendai, Japan noted in an email to Reuters Health. Pneumonia risk seems to be reduced even by drinking small amounts of green tea. Drinking as little as one cup or less of green tea per day was associated with 41 percent less risk of dying from pneumonia among Japanese women, the investigators found”
(http://health.yahoo.com/news/reuters/us_green_tea.html).
So this is all good news: among the many health benefits of green tea may be some protection against respiratory illnesses, including the flu. (Black tea, incidentally, is similarly helpful; it just contains less EGCG than green tea.)
What is not talked about, however, is what else you may ingest with tea: residues of the pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides used in agricultural production. Who else besides the Boston Tea Campaign sells teas that have been lab-tested for these residues? Our test results are printed on the back of each package.
We have contacted Consumer Reports about doing a study on chemical residues in teas. Stay tuned.
Our parent company, Teekampagne, and its founder, Guenter Faltin, were among the three companies honored at the ceremony for the Deutscher Gruenderpreis 2009, the most important award for outstanding entrepreneurs in Germany. Winners received their awards in Berlin, at a ceremony attended by Commerce Secretary Guttenberg and many other prominent figures from business and politics. Both “stern” magazine and German public TV channel ZDF have been carrying reports on the nominees and prize winners.
Faltin, a professor of entrepreneurship at the Free University of Berlin, started Teekampagne 25 years ago, to demonstrate that his ideas could succeed in the marketplace. Teekampagne sells only one kind of tea, Darjeeling, in large packages and by mail order, at tremendous savings to the consumer. Its tea is 100% Darjeeling, guaranteed by the official Seal of Purity from the Tea Board of India; it is subject to an extraordinary quality assurance protocol (among other things, it is tested for hundreds of herbicides and pesticides, with the results printed on each package, and it is traceable to its origins). Teekampagne also funds a reforestation project in Darjeeling, carried out locally by the World Wide Fund for Nature. A model company not only for its entrepreneurial idea but also for its ecological leadership, Teekampagne has a loyal following in Europe, where it sells about 400 tons of tea a year.
Faltin has been a business angel for a variety of successful startups as well as a widely read author and consultant on entrepreneurship. His latest book, Kopf schlaegt Kapital (“Brain Beats Capital”) is among the best-selling business books in Germany this year.
The Tea Review has published a review of our First Flush Darjeeling Tea and characterized it as “a tea that delights the senses in every way.”
To read the review, please go to http://www.teareviewblog.com/?p=3754
To order our First Flush Darjeeling Tea, please go to our secure online shop at https://shop.bostonteacampaign.com
