There are many things about college I love, but almost none more than free access to an unlimited amount of academic research journals. Since the start of this blog, I have promised all of you that I one of the things I would do would be to read and review and summarize tea research articles for you. The post before last I gave you some very small tidbits, but this post I will go much more in depth and I hope you will join the discussion by commenting.
This article, Decaffeination of fresh green tea leaf (Camellia sinensis) by hot water treatment (see bottom for citation and reference link), is not the most interesting one I've ever read. What it ends up saying is that if you boil the fresh tea leaves for 3-5 minutes in the step before rolling and drying (basically replacing the pan frying or steaming part of making Chinese green tea), you can remove around 90% of the caffeine without removing the catechins (what we love about tea).
As many of you know, there is a very large and old witch tale flying around that says that if you boil tea for 30 seconds and then discard that, your tea will be decaffeinated. This study just goes to show again that this does not happen. At 1 minute at boiling of fresh tea leaves (not even what would qualify as green tea) only about 50% of the caffeine was removed while you need to reach at least 80% to be able to consider it decaffeinated. Greater than 80% caffeine removal only happened when the time reached at least 3 minutes at boiling water. (Don't forget that what happens to fresh leaves is different from what happens to any type of later processed tea leaves that we drink from too.) When they tried 3 minutes boiling on processed leaves (what could actually be counted as green tea), they found that the leaves were essentially decaffeinated. Unfortunately by then the cell walls were so broken that 90% of the catechins were also removed, therefore making your leaves useless and likely disgusting tasting. Did I really need to tell many of you that, though? Hahaha. I'm pretty sure that when you read "3 minutes boiling on (green tea)" many of you cringed and/or may have nearly cried at the thought like me. Hahahahaha.
So why does processing the fresh leaves into green tea change the amount of catechins removed? Catechin removal requires breaking the cell walls, which happens when
leaves are broken by stirring during pan frying and definitely when rolled and dried. I wonder
if this then means that there would be a significant difference between
the amount of catechins released into the tea from something like
Longjing vs. Gunpowder green teas though? Since one is very obviously rolled more than the other.
Another one of the points it makes in discussing how to decaffeinate the fresh
leaves is that the water should be at boiling for decaffeination to
happen. Somewhere below the boiling point (between 100C and 75C)
the caffeine is no longer removed from the fresh leaf. In their table of
results from this part (see Table 2), it's interesting to see that while that basically no caffeine is removed from the fresh leaves at
50C (the lowest of the tested temperatures), a significant amount of
catechins are (~10% after 5 minutes). Because their study was about decaffeination as opposed to catechin extraction though, they did not test what happened in processed green tea leaves at these lower temperatures. It seems counter-intuitive to me that
while normally catechin removal would require breaking the cell walls, brewing at lower temperatures before those steps also released them.
Even after processing the fresh leaves into actual tea, does do lower temperatures affect how much caffeine and catechins go into the water? Or are the cells so broken by then that there is no difference based on brewing temperature? Based on personal experience, I do believe that lower temperatures change the ratio of what goes into the tea since the taste is different. I just wish I had scientific evidence backing me up and explaining exactly what that taste difference was caused by. Maybe I'll find that in another article.
Reference:
Huiling Liang, Yuerong Liang, Junjie Dong, Jianliang Lu, Hairong Xu, Hui Wang, Decaffeination of fresh green tea leaf (Camellia sinensis) by hot water treatment, Food Chemistry, Volume 101, Issue 4, 2007, Pages 1451-1456, ISSN 0308-8146, 10.1016/j.foodchem.2006.03.054.
(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308814606002998)
Keywords: Decaffeinated tea; Green tea; Black tea; Caffeine; Catechins; EGCg; HPLC; Polyphenol oxidase
Showing posts with label green tea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label green tea. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
A Girl's Best Friend
You know what I love more than anything in the world? Tea. But feedback is a close 15th or something in that list. Hahaha. I have a hot yoga class tomorrow morning so I can't say much right now, but how about instead you say something? What do you like? What don't you like? What do you want from me? Without facebook "Likes" here it's hard for me to gauge what your reactions are. Although I do appreciate the nice OVER 250 HITS! Woo!
And now, as a reward for your wonderful patience with me, a picture of my new kutani set! (Please help me think of a name for the pot, I don't really name cups, but I guess this one is special and deserves it. And preferably a Japanese name, since it is Japanese.)
And now, as a reward for your wonderful patience with me, a picture of my new kutani set! (Please help me think of a name for the pot, I don't really name cups, but I guess this one is special and deserves it. And preferably a Japanese name, since it is Japanese.)
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Dang Seattle Rain and High School Graduations!!
My dear friends could not join me in any tea adventures today due to STUPID things like IMPORTANT HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION HOMEWORK and DANGEROUS DRIVING CONDITIONS so there was no tea adventure. But I stopped by New Century Tea Gallery after service at my Choeizan Enkyoji Nichiren Shu Buddhist Temple to inquire at the very least about this year's spring harvest and found that the owner would be bringing it all back from China on June 1st! I'll have to stop in after that date instead then, which is fine and actually makes me pretty happy because then I get super fresh green tea! Woo!
In preparation for this I have broken in my beautiful new Kitani with a delicious Western Zhejiang Long Ding from Tea Trekker back in Northampton, MA. I need to drink all the Chinese greens I have up faster so that I can get more and have room for some Japanese greens too!! Hehehe. I'd really love to get some more Gyokuro, but I'm afraid my budget may limit me to Sencha. I love Sencha too, but oh my fluffy bunnies from the land beneath the bed, Gyokuro is just heavenly to me. So we shall see. It's also quite likely that I'll finally start experimenting with Matcha. Matcha is really great, I think, because I can just put it into a bottle and shake it up. Hahahahaha. Just like with putting a Chinese green into a Japanese tea pot I feel kind of sacrilegious, I also feel kind of sacrilegious for shaking up my matcha in a plastic bottle. Hahahahaha. But since I'm in college, I consider everything fair game.
And I swear to those fluffy bunnies again that ONE DAY I will summarize a few original research articles for you all here! On my list is Caffeine content, L-Theanine content and effects, and I should probably do EGCG too since everyone's always going on and on and on about that. But of course, I also want to focus on whatever cool things I can find out about Pu-erh or Purple tea. Maybe tomorrow.
In preparation for this I have broken in my beautiful new Kitani with a delicious Western Zhejiang Long Ding from Tea Trekker back in Northampton, MA. I need to drink all the Chinese greens I have up faster so that I can get more and have room for some Japanese greens too!! Hehehe. I'd really love to get some more Gyokuro, but I'm afraid my budget may limit me to Sencha. I love Sencha too, but oh my fluffy bunnies from the land beneath the bed, Gyokuro is just heavenly to me. So we shall see. It's also quite likely that I'll finally start experimenting with Matcha. Matcha is really great, I think, because I can just put it into a bottle and shake it up. Hahahahaha. Just like with putting a Chinese green into a Japanese tea pot I feel kind of sacrilegious, I also feel kind of sacrilegious for shaking up my matcha in a plastic bottle. Hahahahaha. But since I'm in college, I consider everything fair game.
And I swear to those fluffy bunnies again that ONE DAY I will summarize a few original research articles for you all here! On my list is Caffeine content, L-Theanine content and effects, and I should probably do EGCG too since everyone's always going on and on and on about that. But of course, I also want to focus on whatever cool things I can find out about Pu-erh or Purple tea. Maybe tomorrow.
Saturday, May 19, 2012
May Puer Tea Appreciation Club of Seattle Meeting!
Today was the month of May's monthly PTACOS meeting! We met at the awesome Phoenix Tea shop in Burien, WA and it was lots of fun! This also means I'm home for summer vacation now! Yay!
We tried a lot of extremely delicious Puerhs. Cinnabar wrote them all down, but I don't have the intention of making this a tea review blog, so I'm not going to go into great detail about that. There were a large number of us drinking today it seemed, and we had a whole bunch of great and crazy conversations that I'm sure we'll all burst out laughing about as we randomly remember the crazier tidbits later. I really love these kinds of get togethers and think that there should be more joys in life like this. While talking I learned about several different cultural and art events happening in the area, about other artists in the area, spas, and of course just a lot of interesting story telling about one thing or another. Delicious tea and interesting people and conversation, what more could one ask for? These meetings are the best and really make me want to be the Tea Hostess for my dorm again next year and have similar weekly meetings.
Then of course afterwards I finally did a bit of tea and teaware shopping that I'd been dying to do! Hehehe! I scored a GORGEOUS kyusu set from Kutani by someone named 栄峰 (not too sure yet how to pronounce this name). I'll put up a picture of it tomorrow. It's really lovely with pictures of camellias and ducks on it. As a set, it came with one cup with a lid. I am extremely happy to finally own a kyusu! Finally I can brew Japanese green tea in a Japanese pot instead of feeling sacrilegious by doing it in a Chinese one. Hahaha. And it's a larger pot, so I'll be able to do larger tea servings! Woo-hoo!
In addition to that I finally bought a nice puerh tea pick, a fine mesh strainer to pour through, and some very nice smelling rooibos chai tea. Like I mentioned before, pictures soon! I meant to get some purple tea too, but somehow I completely forgot!! Super sadness, but I'll just order it fresh in September if I don't manage to get over there again before leaving for school again.
Tomorrow the hunt is on for some possible cups, some possible green tea, and some possible fun things. WITH A FRIEND! Ahhh, exciting times!
We tried a lot of extremely delicious Puerhs. Cinnabar wrote them all down, but I don't have the intention of making this a tea review blog, so I'm not going to go into great detail about that. There were a large number of us drinking today it seemed, and we had a whole bunch of great and crazy conversations that I'm sure we'll all burst out laughing about as we randomly remember the crazier tidbits later. I really love these kinds of get togethers and think that there should be more joys in life like this. While talking I learned about several different cultural and art events happening in the area, about other artists in the area, spas, and of course just a lot of interesting story telling about one thing or another. Delicious tea and interesting people and conversation, what more could one ask for? These meetings are the best and really make me want to be the Tea Hostess for my dorm again next year and have similar weekly meetings.
Then of course afterwards I finally did a bit of tea and teaware shopping that I'd been dying to do! Hehehe! I scored a GORGEOUS kyusu set from Kutani by someone named 栄峰 (not too sure yet how to pronounce this name). I'll put up a picture of it tomorrow. It's really lovely with pictures of camellias and ducks on it. As a set, it came with one cup with a lid. I am extremely happy to finally own a kyusu! Finally I can brew Japanese green tea in a Japanese pot instead of feeling sacrilegious by doing it in a Chinese one. Hahaha. And it's a larger pot, so I'll be able to do larger tea servings! Woo-hoo!
In addition to that I finally bought a nice puerh tea pick, a fine mesh strainer to pour through, and some very nice smelling rooibos chai tea. Like I mentioned before, pictures soon! I meant to get some purple tea too, but somehow I completely forgot!! Super sadness, but I'll just order it fresh in September if I don't manage to get over there again before leaving for school again.
Tomorrow the hunt is on for some possible cups, some possible green tea, and some possible fun things. WITH A FRIEND! Ahhh, exciting times!
Monday, May 7, 2012
*eyetwitch*
Just finished my last final about 4 hours ago. Not allowed to talk about it until after the last final tomorrow morning for the entire school. So I'll just leave that at that.
Will you forgive me for being absent for so long?
I had to pack my stuff the other day. My poor sweet German baby is in storage. So guess how I had to made tea the other day?
Yes.
I have sunk to the lowest of the low.
I actually boiled water in mason jars in the microwave.
Yes.
Yes, I did.
And these weren't just regular mason jars.
Nope. These were old spaghetti sauce jars.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Yes. I am indeed a poor, poor college student indeed.
I can't wait till I get back and get a real water boiling thing and my big tea pots and infuser mugs. <3 But I will sorely miss my baby in the meantime.
And I also made the last of my Gyokuro today. I know, it's been miraculous how long I've stretched it out for. It was really at the end. But it made it one last brew, and then it was gone. And guess how I made it? Yes, in a plastic bottle with cold tap water. Hahahahaha. Oh my goodness. Whoever said making tea was hard? Hahahahaha.
Will you forgive me for being absent for so long?
I had to pack my stuff the other day. My poor sweet German baby is in storage. So guess how I had to made tea the other day?
Yes.
I have sunk to the lowest of the low.
I actually boiled water in mason jars in the microwave.
Yes.
Yes, I did.
And these weren't just regular mason jars.
Nope. These were old spaghetti sauce jars.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Yes. I am indeed a poor, poor college student indeed.
I can't wait till I get back and get a real water boiling thing and my big tea pots and infuser mugs. <3 But I will sorely miss my baby in the meantime.
And I also made the last of my Gyokuro today. I know, it's been miraculous how long I've stretched it out for. It was really at the end. But it made it one last brew, and then it was gone. And guess how I made it? Yes, in a plastic bottle with cold tap water. Hahahahaha. Oh my goodness. Whoever said making tea was hard? Hahahahaha.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
I'm Such a Tea Geek
And I say that proudly! So many people go, "Oh, no you're not! You're a tea nerd! Not a geek!" as if geek is a bad thing, when I say it proudly. Hahaha.
But anyways, I just FINALLY got rid of my flighty mind by doing a bit of research on tea! I found 8 new articles that I was able to download and about 8 others that I had to request from the Five College Library. I hate UMass- Amherst. Apparently they have all the articles I want. But then again, if they were at Mount Holyoke, I would be the one who would have to go and find it and scan it, which would be a major pain, so haha for them I guess!
Some quick tidbits on the articles I found:
But anyways, I just FINALLY got rid of my flighty mind by doing a bit of research on tea! I found 8 new articles that I was able to download and about 8 others that I had to request from the Five College Library. I hate UMass- Amherst. Apparently they have all the articles I want. But then again, if they were at Mount Holyoke, I would be the one who would have to go and find it and scan it, which would be a major pain, so haha for them I guess!
Some quick tidbits on the articles I found:
- L-theanine improves attention and task-switching, but it is not sure on the alertness part, and seems to be most potent in combination with caffeine!
- L-theanine may actually be highest in black tea! (Poor me, considering I hate black tea and it's quantity is significantly diminished in tea with lots of milk apparently too which is the only way I'd ever drink black tea hahahaha)
- L-theanine protects your liver!
- L-theanine helps schizophrenics!
- L-theanine helps significantly decrease smoking!
- THERE IS SUCH A THING AS ALBINO TEA!
- Black tea helps renal (kidney) transplant patients recover!
- And that kind of thing. There was much more. ONE DAY I will finally post summaries of all these articles up here, so that people from non-science backgrounds (and even those of science backgrounds but from non-biology disciplines) can have some extra excuses to justify their love of tea. Maybe I'll even get in to learning more about the biochemistry behind coffee and do comparative research. La la la one day over the rainbow... Hahaha.
Necessary Study Break Quick Comment (Library tea, Mother, Oolongssss!!, and the great Japanese Green Tea Shortage of 2012)
My mother thinks me caring so much about how to make tea is ridiculous. Hahahaha. I posted a status on facebook about how while they had good Sencha leaves at the coffee shop in Mount Holyoke's library (FREAKING AMAZING LIBRARY, by the way, except that it exceedingly reminds me of something you'd see in The Shining and is a horrendous maze for about the first 5 weeks...), but that they were going to put it into too hot of water before I requested ice to cool the water down (thought about just asking for hot tap water, but alas no matter how much I want it to be, sencha is not gyokuro), and then in addition to then almost ruining the whole point of putting in the ice they poured in the hot water directly on the tea leaves (which they put into a bag, but I forgive them for that) and didn't even bother to tell me how long to let it steep. *rambles and rants about why people mistakenly think green tea tastes horrible and bitter* But anyways, so my mother then comments something to the effect of "Whatever. Add water, let sit, drink." Hahahahaha.
Dearest Mother,
You are mistaking tea with instant coffee. Please note that not only are the two spelled differently, they come from different plants, are different parts of the plant, taste completely different, are biochemically almost completely different, and are definitely prepared completely different. Would you bake a salmon the same as a black berry pie? Never!!!!!!!!!!!
Love,
Your Adoring Daughter
Also, three amazing teas arrived from Phoenix Tea for me yesterday! They had a really cool opportunity that day at just the right time where I received not only my tea, but two awesome samples! I'll let you know what arrived tomorrow hopefully. I've been two busy today to try them, but I will let you know that I received two DELICIOUS smelling oolongs and one 2007 sheng pu-erh! But really, I've been starting to crave oolongs like the ones I ordered for a while now, so I'm super happy that I received two of them!
And as most of you may know, the Japanese tea picking season does not begin until next month.
...
NEXT MONTH.
Argh! Why did my Japanese green tea supply have to run out now??!!! Because now it's more economical for me to just wait than it is to buy some older stuff! But I'm so addicted to delicious Japanese green tea!!!! I suppose I should just save up my money in the meantime and splurge on more gyokuro. But I also really want some of the special green tea at the New Century Tea Gallery in Seattle, and I want some sencha this time too... Though maybe I should go for a fukamushi instead. Fukamushi was the first Japanese lose leaf green I ever purchased. Sadly, I had no idea how to make it or what made it special, so it was overwhelmingly wasted now that I look back on it. But maybe I should try it again now......... Too many choices!!!!! Also, the place I wanted to buy my new stocks of Japanese green are in South Hadley, and next month I will be in Seattle. Oh well. I'll stock up on the other smaller things I wanted while in Seattle and save a larger supply purchase from them in September so that I don't have to worry about shipping and hopefully they'll be better at storing than I have the ability to be. Haha.
I'm really a crazy tea fanatic. Hehehe. Loving it~~!
And now back to my work. I've put at least 8 hours into this now, and looking at examples from other classmates, I think I've put in too much effort already. Hahaha. Oh well. Hopefully that means this will turn out amazingly and my professor will be so impressed she'll finally stop giving me an exceedingly large number of +'s after my B's and finally give me an A on something. Seriously! How many +'s does it take to turn a B into an A??? Hahaha. But anyways. I know what I need to do, but without my green tea supply it's super difficult to do! Hahahahaha. Now! Homework!
Dearest Mother,
You are mistaking tea with instant coffee. Please note that not only are the two spelled differently, they come from different plants, are different parts of the plant, taste completely different, are biochemically almost completely different, and are definitely prepared completely different. Would you bake a salmon the same as a black berry pie? Never!!!!!!!!!!!
Love,
Your Adoring Daughter
Also, three amazing teas arrived from Phoenix Tea for me yesterday! They had a really cool opportunity that day at just the right time where I received not only my tea, but two awesome samples! I'll let you know what arrived tomorrow hopefully. I've been two busy today to try them, but I will let you know that I received two DELICIOUS smelling oolongs and one 2007 sheng pu-erh! But really, I've been starting to crave oolongs like the ones I ordered for a while now, so I'm super happy that I received two of them!
And as most of you may know, the Japanese tea picking season does not begin until next month.
...
NEXT MONTH.
Argh! Why did my Japanese green tea supply have to run out now??!!! Because now it's more economical for me to just wait than it is to buy some older stuff! But I'm so addicted to delicious Japanese green tea!!!! I suppose I should just save up my money in the meantime and splurge on more gyokuro. But I also really want some of the special green tea at the New Century Tea Gallery in Seattle, and I want some sencha this time too... Though maybe I should go for a fukamushi instead. Fukamushi was the first Japanese lose leaf green I ever purchased. Sadly, I had no idea how to make it or what made it special, so it was overwhelmingly wasted now that I look back on it. But maybe I should try it again now......... Too many choices!!!!! Also, the place I wanted to buy my new stocks of Japanese green are in South Hadley, and next month I will be in Seattle. Oh well. I'll stock up on the other smaller things I wanted while in Seattle and save a larger supply purchase from them in September so that I don't have to worry about shipping and hopefully they'll be better at storing than I have the ability to be. Haha.
I'm really a crazy tea fanatic. Hehehe. Loving it~~!
And now back to my work. I've put at least 8 hours into this now, and looking at examples from other classmates, I think I've put in too much effort already. Hahaha. Oh well. Hopefully that means this will turn out amazingly and my professor will be so impressed she'll finally stop giving me an exceedingly large number of +'s after my B's and finally give me an A on something. Seriously! How many +'s does it take to turn a B into an A??? Hahaha. But anyways. I know what I need to do, but without my green tea supply it's super difficult to do! Hahahahaha. Now! Homework!
Monday, March 26, 2012
Who am I kidding?
I don't know enough about aging pu-erh right now nor do I have enough money to go around amassing tea that I'm not going to drink. Hahahaha.
But either way, today I did something really funny. Haha. So yesterday I made spaghetti with friends. And with spaghetti comes marinara sauce! And with marinara sauce comes awesome glass jars with lids! Hahaha. And as every Northwesterner knows, mason jars make for great mugs! And today I have proven that they make great makeshift glass teapots too! Hahahahaha!
That's right! I made tea in a mason jar! Hahahaha! One of my filters for a tumbler fits perfectly in the opening of the jar, so I figured I might as well have fun and make tea in it too. Now I have a large teapot for my pu-erhs which I can't make too easily in my Breville! I love my Breville and all, but it doesn't really do less 30 second brews easily, so it's not the best for large tastings. I was thinking about getting a larger gaiwan (the one I have now is good for 4 people max and at that point your serving is super tiny), but I'm feeling protective of my wallet at the moment and would rather not spend even that much money, thus leaving me without a teapot bigger than 8oz! Until now! Hahaha! Now I technically have a 24oz teapot! Hahaha! I feel super hippie and college student-ish. It's lots of fun.
Isn't it beautiful? Haha. That is also my new Mengku sheng in there too, just to let you know. And it was again a lot less spicy than I keep expecting it to be! Year 5 is definitely an interesting turning point for shengs I guess. Ah, I love this journey.
Oh and I found out something really cool the other day, apparently students can be instructors for classes during our intersession term in January! Hehehe. I was thinking of seeing if I could teach a henna class and a tea class. I know I'm not an expert on tea or a tea master, but I would absolutely love to be able to share my love of tea and what knowledge I have with more people so easily (and get paid! Haha). Plus then I'd have the funding and the excuse to buy more teaware and tea! Hehehe! But we'll see. I feel a little premature to start teaching other people about tea so seriously like that. So maybe I'll just stick with henna. What do you think? I was also really hoping to be in Japan for that winter break time period (we don't have to attend the intersession term), so maybe I won't do that this year... But again, we'll see. Hmm, I wonder if I could visit a tea farm when I'm there this time around! That would be so cool!
Speaking of Japanese tea, I'm considering learning Chado, because I really have a lot of respect for it and would also like to expand my Buddhist practice, but that's just an idea I have arbitrarily floating around right now, and I definitely don't have the time for that this year, and if all goes well and I get into the classes I need for next semester, I really won't have the time for the next 4 semesters either! Haha.
So I don't know if I've mentioned this on here before, but I want to be a biomedical researcher. I LOVE SCIENCE. You might have realized that by now. But really, I LOVE SCIENCE SO MUCH. Almost three years ago now I was extremely lucky and had the amazing opportunity to intern at a university hospital research center. Going in my intention was to explore the research side of medicine and confirm that I did not want to be a part of it. Haha! That's hilarious because I left with exactly the opposite mentality. I fell head over heels in love with research. I'm pretty sure I ended up working like 50 hours on average per week there instead of the required 40 because I stayed after almost every day and I even went in on weekends sometimes. I was extremely happy to get up every morning in order to go to work and didn't really want to leave at the end of the day either. Haha. It was just so exciting to go in and not know what you were going to find when the project was done. It was also really fascinating to learn hands on how cells and the chemicals in the body worked. Just thinking about it all makes me so happy and excited about it all over again! So I left knowing I wanted to be a researcher for certain.
To do this, I would preferably like the MD/PhD combo degree. If I can't get into that, then an MD, if not that then a PhD, and if I can't even get a PhD then I don't know how on earth I'm even alive. Hahaha. And it's not like I want just any MD/PhD degree either, I really want to get into one of the few NIH sponsored programs as well, because then it's F R E E. Woah! A 5 year doctoral degree, free!!! That would be a dream come true. So in order to even qualify to get in the first place, I obviously have to take care of some pre-med requirements. These requirements differ slightly from med school to med school unfortunately. I decided however, that Harvard's would likely be of a very high standard and am going off of theirs. I figure if I can achieve their standard, it will cover whatever requirements other med schools have as well.
I think I'm definitely right because they changed their requirements for the year I'd be entering (2016) this year, and basically added on an extra year of intensive physics classes and biology and chemistry classes. ...THANKS A LOT, HARVARD SHOWOFFS. Hahaha. Just kidding. I would've been taking most of those classes anyways, and they all look really interesting, so I'm sure it'll be fun.
So after figuring out which classes I'll therefore absolutely have to take I realized that I will qualify to basically be a Biochemistry major with a Physics minor. Hahahahaha. And not only that, but for the next two full years I will have to take at least one biology, chemistry, and physics class per semester. Technically I could put off one or another for a year and ease up the load a little, but I work better under a bit of stress and when I'm extremely interested in a subject. I feel that I definitely need to have a balance though, and so I'm trying to decide between Asian Studies, Economics, International Relations, or Buddhist Studies for my 2nd major or my minor. I'd rather do a double major instead of a minor (and I only need one music class to take care of my last distribution requirement because this year was so well rounded! Woot!) and I have like 13 class spaces that I could put whatever I want to in, more than enough for a 2nd major, so it's not like I won't have time for it.
But anyways, the future is certainly packed isn't it? Yup. And now I need to go do homework like usual. Hahaha. Time for more tea!
But either way, today I did something really funny. Haha. So yesterday I made spaghetti with friends. And with spaghetti comes marinara sauce! And with marinara sauce comes awesome glass jars with lids! Hahaha. And as every Northwesterner knows, mason jars make for great mugs! And today I have proven that they make great makeshift glass teapots too! Hahahahaha!
That's right! I made tea in a mason jar! Hahahaha! One of my filters for a tumbler fits perfectly in the opening of the jar, so I figured I might as well have fun and make tea in it too. Now I have a large teapot for my pu-erhs which I can't make too easily in my Breville! I love my Breville and all, but it doesn't really do less 30 second brews easily, so it's not the best for large tastings. I was thinking about getting a larger gaiwan (the one I have now is good for 4 people max and at that point your serving is super tiny), but I'm feeling protective of my wallet at the moment and would rather not spend even that much money, thus leaving me without a teapot bigger than 8oz! Until now! Hahaha! Now I technically have a 24oz teapot! Hahaha! I feel super hippie and college student-ish. It's lots of fun.Isn't it beautiful? Haha. That is also my new Mengku sheng in there too, just to let you know. And it was again a lot less spicy than I keep expecting it to be! Year 5 is definitely an interesting turning point for shengs I guess. Ah, I love this journey.
Oh and I found out something really cool the other day, apparently students can be instructors for classes during our intersession term in January! Hehehe. I was thinking of seeing if I could teach a henna class and a tea class. I know I'm not an expert on tea or a tea master, but I would absolutely love to be able to share my love of tea and what knowledge I have with more people so easily (and get paid! Haha). Plus then I'd have the funding and the excuse to buy more teaware and tea! Hehehe! But we'll see. I feel a little premature to start teaching other people about tea so seriously like that. So maybe I'll just stick with henna. What do you think? I was also really hoping to be in Japan for that winter break time period (we don't have to attend the intersession term), so maybe I won't do that this year... But again, we'll see. Hmm, I wonder if I could visit a tea farm when I'm there this time around! That would be so cool!
Speaking of Japanese tea, I'm considering learning Chado, because I really have a lot of respect for it and would also like to expand my Buddhist practice, but that's just an idea I have arbitrarily floating around right now, and I definitely don't have the time for that this year, and if all goes well and I get into the classes I need for next semester, I really won't have the time for the next 4 semesters either! Haha.
So I don't know if I've mentioned this on here before, but I want to be a biomedical researcher. I LOVE SCIENCE. You might have realized that by now. But really, I LOVE SCIENCE SO MUCH. Almost three years ago now I was extremely lucky and had the amazing opportunity to intern at a university hospital research center. Going in my intention was to explore the research side of medicine and confirm that I did not want to be a part of it. Haha! That's hilarious because I left with exactly the opposite mentality. I fell head over heels in love with research. I'm pretty sure I ended up working like 50 hours on average per week there instead of the required 40 because I stayed after almost every day and I even went in on weekends sometimes. I was extremely happy to get up every morning in order to go to work and didn't really want to leave at the end of the day either. Haha. It was just so exciting to go in and not know what you were going to find when the project was done. It was also really fascinating to learn hands on how cells and the chemicals in the body worked. Just thinking about it all makes me so happy and excited about it all over again! So I left knowing I wanted to be a researcher for certain.
To do this, I would preferably like the MD/PhD combo degree. If I can't get into that, then an MD, if not that then a PhD, and if I can't even get a PhD then I don't know how on earth I'm even alive. Hahaha. And it's not like I want just any MD/PhD degree either, I really want to get into one of the few NIH sponsored programs as well, because then it's F R E E. Woah! A 5 year doctoral degree, free!!! That would be a dream come true. So in order to even qualify to get in the first place, I obviously have to take care of some pre-med requirements. These requirements differ slightly from med school to med school unfortunately. I decided however, that Harvard's would likely be of a very high standard and am going off of theirs. I figure if I can achieve their standard, it will cover whatever requirements other med schools have as well.
I think I'm definitely right because they changed their requirements for the year I'd be entering (2016) this year, and basically added on an extra year of intensive physics classes and biology and chemistry classes. ...THANKS A LOT, HARVARD SHOWOFFS. Hahaha. Just kidding. I would've been taking most of those classes anyways, and they all look really interesting, so I'm sure it'll be fun.
So after figuring out which classes I'll therefore absolutely have to take I realized that I will qualify to basically be a Biochemistry major with a Physics minor. Hahahahaha. And not only that, but for the next two full years I will have to take at least one biology, chemistry, and physics class per semester. Technically I could put off one or another for a year and ease up the load a little, but I work better under a bit of stress and when I'm extremely interested in a subject. I feel that I definitely need to have a balance though, and so I'm trying to decide between Asian Studies, Economics, International Relations, or Buddhist Studies for my 2nd major or my minor. I'd rather do a double major instead of a minor (and I only need one music class to take care of my last distribution requirement because this year was so well rounded! Woot!) and I have like 13 class spaces that I could put whatever I want to in, more than enough for a 2nd major, so it's not like I won't have time for it.
But anyways, the future is certainly packed isn't it? Yup. And now I need to go do homework like usual. Hahaha. Time for more tea!
Friday, February 17, 2012
Yeah, Yixing Teapot!
I've been really curious for a long time what effect brewing tea in a clay teapot had on the flavor of the tea. Certainly it made me feel a lot more special, and I enjoyed my tea more, but I wasn't really interested in drinking two full pots (albeit small pots haha) of tea so I'll wait for some time next week when my friend whom I think I might have hooked on pu-erh (which is only what I'm going to use in this pot) comes back from afar. I would say that my tea tasted better than usual, but it's REALLY good pu-erh (LongRun's 2898) already, and I just recently read an article about how people couldn't tell the difference between dog food and some french dish when it was dressed up properly... Haha. So I will do a blind taste test on myself here soon, brewing it in both the Yixing and ceramic teapots. Certainly though, when I put hot water in the yixing teapot, WOW. What a SUPER earthy smell!!! Geez! It was like I had my face pressed to a wet forest floor! Hahahaha. It smelled great. I also had my roommates smell it, and they were shocked that a teapot could smell like that. Hehehe. I love introducing people to new things about tea.
Which apparently I need to do even more of. Yesterday, I decided it would be a good idea to eat some chocolate cake. This was an actual thing I had to think about for a few seconds, because I really dislike chocolate. I love chocolate milk, but actual chocolate gives me a headache and really upsets my stomach. I have a legitimate reason for disliking chocolate!!! Stop hating on me!!! Hahaha. You have no idea how hard it is to go to a woman's college and dislike chocolate. But anyways, I said this, and one of my friends started hating on me. So I told her I had this great tea (2898 again) that tasted a lot like it (it's so THICK and has a really sweet and dark earthyness) and suggested that she should try it. Then, she had to go and say the most nonsensical sentence ever that way too many people say all the time:
"I don't like tea."
BULL FREAKING S****.
The best tea people who say crap like that have ever had was either Lipton or whatever they just willy-nilly serve at Chinese restaurants (I'm assuming it's most commonly an oolong). Their green tea was always probably burnt, and well, I'd say their black tea was over brewed or something, but I don't really like black teas at all in general unless they have a ton of milk and sugar in them (a sin, I know!!). Haha. But they've definitely never had a quality Dan Cong oolong that tastes like honeysuckle, the new Purple Tea, Gyokuro made over ice, or one of the owner of New Century Tea Gallery's green teas from his family farm (not all on linked page are from his family's farm) or Moon White Pu-erh. HONESTLY. Just because you've had some stupid Lipton tea, or some super sugared up Snapple iced tea does not qualify you to say you dislike all tea!!!!!! AT ALL. GAH.
Also, I can't tell if I have a perfect opportunity to help change a bit of this right now or not haha. I was offered a chance to run a tea tasting event for a club fundraising event on campus today, but then the girl started talking about flowers and spices and I realized she (and so many other people) just lump all "tea" in one word and consider any other dried plant piece that you can put in water and drink as what gives tea its flavor. *SIGHS* We'll be discussing this further. To do anything though, I'd either need more gaiwans/pots and cups, or at the very least more strainers. Technically I have a ton of little tea bags you can use to make yourself, but tea bags suck. A lot. I tried making Gyokuro in them once. I would have gotten better results from holding them down with a spoon. Hahaha. It was like there was no infusion! So disappointing. So yeah, I think tea bags are a bad idea. I suggested we do a chai event, but again we'll have to discuss and think this through further.
Watch out for my next post, I have time this weekend to read and analyze a few scientific articles. Comment with suggestions about what you'd like to know about tea if you'd like and I'll see what I can find. :)
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Welcome to College Tea Time!
Hello everyone,
My name is Miss Myr and I'm an extremely proud student at Mount Holyoke College who is a true aspiring loose leaf tea connoisseur. I first discovered the delights of loose leaf tea a little under three years ago on a high school choir tour of Victoria and Vancouver in Canada. We stopped for a small performance and visit at the Vancouver Chinese Garden, where in the store I found a bunch of absolutely adorable little tin boxes. They were so cute! I noticed that there was tea in them, and so I got a nice Jasmine one that I knew I'd like, and then noticed one that I'd never heard of before: "Pu-erh". "'Pu-erh'? What on earth could that be?" I wondered. And so I bought it. Some of the best things in life come from following your curiosity, and this was definitely one of them. I tried this tea, and it was so delicious!!!! I was shocked! I'd never had such delicious tea in my entire life!!! Then I started doing research on it online, and discovered that it was basically the best tea ever for a student, because you didn't have to care about the temperature of the water and could more or less steep it for an indefinite period of time (unlike the super finicky green teas). Thus started my journey into the world of fine tea.
Now, nearly three years later, I attend the oldest women's college in the United States, Mount Holyoke College. It's a paradise here. I absolutely love it. The academics are challenging and rewarding, the students interesting and extremely diverse, the professors approachable and caring, the policies and respect for students high and comforting, the dorms homey and beautiful, the campus huge and stunning, and there are so many things to do!!! It's crazy. Four years will not be enough here. Haha. But also while I'm here, I really want to introduce quality tea to all my friends and acquaintances here. It was really funny because when I first found out who my roommates were going to be and was in the process of emailing them, one of them told me she liked tea too. Then we met and she now laughs basically every time she looks at my collection and refuses to show me her's because she didn't realize just how much I loved tea. Hahaha. I have so much tea ware and tea. And hopefully I'll be getting even more soon! Hehe. Drinking tea every day really depletes your supplies, you know? Now if you know anything about tea you might think, well, it doesn't deplete it that much if you get all the brews you can out of your leaves. But I do! Part of my problem is that I share my tea. Hahaha. I have some really good brews that I just love to share by grabbing people from my dorm's common room and being all "Hey! Get in here and have a cup of this!" It's lots of fun, and then my friends leave with a new appreciation for tea which is the best thing ever. <3 Spawn my tea addict minions! Spawn! Just kidding. Hahaha.
The purpose of this blog is to post about various aspects of tea and being a young tea connoisseur in college. I hope that this will reach a lot of my friends here at Mount Holyoke and anyone else in college or interested in tea!
By the way, my posts may not be too frequent. I DO go to Mount Holyoke College, number stupid freaking 12 on the list of most rigorous colleges in the US, 5 rankings above Harvard College. Haha. Why do I go here again? Oh right, I actually wanted this kind of academic rigor. Haha. (Sighs) :)
My name is Miss Myr and I'm an extremely proud student at Mount Holyoke College who is a true aspiring loose leaf tea connoisseur. I first discovered the delights of loose leaf tea a little under three years ago on a high school choir tour of Victoria and Vancouver in Canada. We stopped for a small performance and visit at the Vancouver Chinese Garden, where in the store I found a bunch of absolutely adorable little tin boxes. They were so cute! I noticed that there was tea in them, and so I got a nice Jasmine one that I knew I'd like, and then noticed one that I'd never heard of before: "Pu-erh". "'Pu-erh'? What on earth could that be?" I wondered. And so I bought it. Some of the best things in life come from following your curiosity, and this was definitely one of them. I tried this tea, and it was so delicious!!!! I was shocked! I'd never had such delicious tea in my entire life!!! Then I started doing research on it online, and discovered that it was basically the best tea ever for a student, because you didn't have to care about the temperature of the water and could more or less steep it for an indefinite period of time (unlike the super finicky green teas). Thus started my journey into the world of fine tea.
Now, nearly three years later, I attend the oldest women's college in the United States, Mount Holyoke College. It's a paradise here. I absolutely love it. The academics are challenging and rewarding, the students interesting and extremely diverse, the professors approachable and caring, the policies and respect for students high and comforting, the dorms homey and beautiful, the campus huge and stunning, and there are so many things to do!!! It's crazy. Four years will not be enough here. Haha. But also while I'm here, I really want to introduce quality tea to all my friends and acquaintances here. It was really funny because when I first found out who my roommates were going to be and was in the process of emailing them, one of them told me she liked tea too. Then we met and she now laughs basically every time she looks at my collection and refuses to show me her's because she didn't realize just how much I loved tea. Hahaha. I have so much tea ware and tea. And hopefully I'll be getting even more soon! Hehe. Drinking tea every day really depletes your supplies, you know? Now if you know anything about tea you might think, well, it doesn't deplete it that much if you get all the brews you can out of your leaves. But I do! Part of my problem is that I share my tea. Hahaha. I have some really good brews that I just love to share by grabbing people from my dorm's common room and being all "Hey! Get in here and have a cup of this!" It's lots of fun, and then my friends leave with a new appreciation for tea which is the best thing ever. <3 Spawn my tea addict minions! Spawn! Just kidding. Hahaha.
The purpose of this blog is to post about various aspects of tea and being a young tea connoisseur in college. I hope that this will reach a lot of my friends here at Mount Holyoke and anyone else in college or interested in tea!
By the way, my posts may not be too frequent. I DO go to Mount Holyoke College, number stupid freaking 12 on the list of most rigorous colleges in the US, 5 rankings above Harvard College. Haha. Why do I go here again? Oh right, I actually wanted this kind of academic rigor. Haha. (Sighs) :)
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