Tea helps with bone strength

Researches in Taiwan have found that people who drank an average of two cups of tea a day for at least six years had stronger bones (6.2% higher hipbone density) than non-tea drinkers. Tea contains manganese, which is critical for healthy bone growth and development. The flouride and chemical compounds known as flavonoids contained in tea also help to enhance bone strength.

Brought to you by Tea Memories.

Lose weight naturally

Drinking about 6 cups of green tea a day can aid in weight loss. Studies have shown this. They think it's because of the antioxidants and that it helps increase your metabolism.

Check out webmd. They have tons of info on tea.


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webmd

Bubble Tea

Are you tired of drinking regular tea? Or coffee? Or regular anything? Here's a treat from you all the way from China.

Bubble Tea!

Bubble tea is far from the plain-looking tea you are familiar with. It comes in a wild variety of flavours and colours. Challenge your palate with peach, lichee, mango or passionfruit! There is also the more traditional green or black tea flavours. It can be served either hot or cold.

These pearls are about the size of small marbles and they sink to the bottom of your cup. This tea is usually served with a gigantic straw just the right size for slurping up these gummy treats.

If that doesn’t sound too appetizing to you, many places that sell bubble tea do offer the wildly flavoured milk teas with or without the pearls. But don’t be a chicken, you should try it at least once. It’s not as strange as it may sound. The pearls sort of remind me of a melted Gummi Bear.

Bubble tea originated overseas in Taiwan and has only recent migrated to North America within the last 10 years or so. You can now find places serving bubble tea in most major cities, such as Los Angeles, Seattle, Vancouver, New York and Toronto. Many say that the local imports just aren’t as good as the stuff you get in Japan and Taiwan.

You can make your own by getting the supplies from Lollicup.

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Lollicup

Buying tea pots

When buying a teapot, make sure there is a small hole in the lid. This allows for a steady flow of air, which prevents the tea from dribbling down the spout after pouring. Different teas are better prepared in a teapot suited to that particular tea. Black tea does best in stoneware for full flavor. Ceylon and Assam teas get full flavor in silver, cast-iron, terracotta or pewter pots. Darjeeling, Oolong and Green teas enjoy porcelain or fine china pots.

Brought to you by Tea Memories.

Bottled White Tea from Revolution Teas

Revolution Teas has launched their own line of ready to drink (rtd)bottled white teas. They seem good enough. We will test them out here at the office and see just how good they really are. They definitely have some really good teas I know that for sure, plus they're in the nylon mesh bags which makes for better brewing.



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Revolution Teas

White tea better than green tea in fighting germs

New studies from Pace University have indicated that White Tea Extract some healing powers. Even though studies have shown that green tea helps your immune system, some of these studies have shown that White Tea actually destroys germ cells directly.

One of the ways the tea was used was put the extract into vairous toothpastes and it showed that they enhanced the anti-microbial effect of the toothpaste.

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webmd article

diet green tea pills!

No sooner than when I post this, do I do a google search, that I find the green tea diet stuff. What the heck. Just do a search for the term green tea.

Incredible!

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google green tea
pure weight loss green tea extract

Advent of tea drinks

Lately I have been noticing an interesting trend in the beverage industry.

There are a lot of drinks that are being mixed with tea in some way or another. I think those at the beverage tops caught wind of the healthy drink called tea. One of the biggest juice makers, oceanspray, has created their own line of tea and juice drinks.



I know so many people including myself that would mix some sort of black tea with juice just to make it interesting. So I'm glad to see that someone has taken that idea and let the rest of the world in on it.

I wonder how long it will take for diet companies to realize the potential for tea as a weight loss, and use it as a gimmick. Like atkins and the rest.

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oceanspray

Stay cool with some tea

During these summer days, it's almost impossilbe to stay cool and still be healthy, with the advent of all the new sodas, juices, artifically fortified flavored water, etc.

Why not just brew some tea and drink it iced?

Sounds simple. All you do brew some tea using half the water you normally use, and then pour it over a cup of ice. What I like to do is create a pitcher full of tea, then let it cool to room temperature, then stick it in the fridge. Usually the night before. Then when I am ready to drink it, I can pour it over ice, and it would be really, really cold. Just add some sweetener to it if you like.

Loose leaf tea works best because of it's fuller flavor.

So stay cool!

Check out some recipes at the tea villa forums.

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tea villa forums

Whatcha Matcha?

Matcha green tea has finally made it stateside. Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf serve it as their green tea ice blended, and there are numerous other online and offline stores that now sell it.

What is matcha? Matcha is a powdered green tea from Japan that comes from the gyokuro green tea plant. Once the leaves are harvested, they are steamed, dried and further processed with the leaves taken out. Once at that point, they are then ground into a fine powder that is known as matcha.

Specialteas has a decent selection of Matcha teas.

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Specialteas

Quick tea brewer

If you just can't wait for that perfect brewed cup of tea, you should think about investing in an Affinitea machine. It works like an espresso machine but it brew tea in about 30 seconds. This is wonderful for making quick iced teas and tea lattes.

This works great for those in coffee shops that want to give their customers something extra. Each machine is about $3,500.

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Affinitea

Can't sleep?

Can't get to sleep? Chamomile tea, taken about an hour before bedtime, will help give you a peaceful night's sleep, Chamomile has an antispasmodic action that helps you to relax and may also prevent nightmares.

Brought to you by: Tea Memories

Say hello to chai tea

The term 'chai' doesn't refer to an actual kind of tea or a specific drink, but a style of preparing it. Chai tea is usually served with a milk or cream, and is heavily spiced.

Common spices in chai are cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, ginger, pepper, and allspice. Chai has come to North America from India, and has gained much popularity at coffeehouses and tea shops everywhere. It's not hard to make at home, and many of the spices are ones you likely have in your pantry. Here are a few great chai recipes to try.

Chai tea is quickly becoming a favorite among coffee drinkers for its similar consistency to coffee. A really great chai tea is made by Pacific Chai. Add some flavored syrups and you have yourself a great drink. It also works great with brewed loose leaf tea for flavoring.


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Pacific Chai

Red tea!

Rooibos tea aka red tea is really not a tea. It's name means red bush and it comes from the Aspalathus Linearis plant instead of the traditional Camellia plant.

The Rooibos plant is a small shrubby bush that only grows in South Africa. The bush grows anywhere from 1/2 to 1 metre in height, with very thin, needle-like leaves. The leaves are green, but turn the characteristic red after fermentation.

This tea is relatively new here with the mass introduction of it not too long ago here in the states by companies like Republic of Tea.

Since then many companies have created their own special blends by adding other flavors such as vanilla chips, chocolate flavorings and much more. It's up to the imagination of the Master Tea Blenders to create some uniquely yet delicious teas.

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Republic of Tea.

Paper Street Teas

So the tea company counter part to this blog and the community is almost done. It can be checked out at http://www.paperstreetteas.com/ or www.psteas.com.

I hope this community flourishes, because I hated to keep on going to multiple forums and sites to get any kind of information, or get some questions answered.

So let's hope for the best!

Welcome to Tea Villa!

We have finally rebuilt the site. I am sad to say that we lost everything when our computers were stolen. So it has taken us some time to rebuild this site. Thanks to everyone for your patience.

Quite a lot of changes, but we are still tweaking it, so we won't officially anounce that the site has been updated and changed until it's been completely finished. For now you can begin posting on our new forums at teavilla.com/teachat.

So check it out and tell your friends that we have come back online after a long hiatus and name change.