Speaker 1: Hey, Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert.
Speaker 2: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. We're
Speaker 2: heading into the vault for an older episode of Stuff
Speaker 2: to Blow Your Mind. This is part two of our
Speaker 2: series on Tea. Part one ran last Saturday. This was
Speaker 2: originally published February seventh, twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: Enjoy the Immortal Dan Chew abandoned eating jade elixirs, picking
Speaker 1: tea instead. He drank and grew feathered wings. The world
Speaker 1: is unaware of the mansion of imminent and hidden immortals.
Speaker 1: People do not know of the palace of transmuting bone
Speaker 1: into clouds. The lad of Cloudy Mountain blended it in
Speaker 1: a gold cauldron. How hollow the fame of the Man
Speaker 1: of Chew and his book of Tea. Late on a
Speaker 1: frosty night, breaking cakes off fragrant tea brewed to overflowing
Speaker 1: the pale yellow frog, I sip and am reborn. Bestowed
Speaker 1: by the gentleman. This tea dispels my suffering, cleansing my
Speaker 1: mind from worry and fear. Come morning, the emotions of
Speaker 1: the fragrant brazier remain intoxicated. Still we walk across the
Speaker 1: clouds reflected in Tiger Stream in high song I send
Speaker 1: the gentleman off.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. That is from
Speaker 1: a song of Drinking Tea on the departure of Zing
Speaker 1: Wrong by jou Ran. This particular bit of Chinese poetry
Speaker 1: I came across when I was reading a blog post
Speaker 1: four ancient Chinese poems on tea in one Symphony. This
Speaker 1: was on the website Tranquility Tuesdays, and I found this
Speaker 1: one interesting because the author of this piece pointed out
Speaker 1: that the piece that we opened the first episode off
Speaker 1: with the seven bowls of Tea is just very well cited.
Speaker 1: You'll find it referenced in just about any history of tea.
Speaker 1: It frequently shows up on tea blogs and so forth.
Speaker 1: The author here noted that, you know, given that it is,
Speaker 1: you know, over sighted, that one should also include other
Speaker 1: poems of note, and this is one such poem well so.
Speaker 2: In the original poem, I'd say the major theme was
Speaker 2: sort of the mounting levels of experience that come with
Speaker 2: each successive cup of tea up until you hit the
Speaker 2: danger zone, crossing the threshold from the sixth to the
Speaker 2: dreaded seventh cup. In this case, what would you say
Speaker 2: The main themes are I see here kind of a
Speaker 2: community or a filial aspect to the tea talking about
Speaker 2: you know, the lab bruise it, and then these two
Speaker 2: drink it together. Sure exactly who these two people are
Speaker 2: supposed to be?
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's definitely more of an earth bound since here
Speaker 1: I'm getting you know. It is, of course beautifully written
Speaker 1: and has that kind of ethereal quality to it as well.
Speaker 1: But the tea is not just taking you and transforming
Speaker 1: you into an immortal and sending you to a mythical lands.
Speaker 1: It's making you feel reborn, but also all of the
Speaker 1: world as well, or at least that's my interpretation of it.
Speaker 1: So anyway, Yeah, this is part two of our look
Speaker 1: at Tea. We're already hearing from some folks regarding our
Speaker 1: first episode, and in the second episode we're going to
Speaker 1: continue the journey. So go back and listen to part
Speaker 1: one if you haven't heard it yet, because in that
Speaker 1: last episode we discussed the botanical facts concerning tea, as
Speaker 1: well as some myths about its origin. But now that
Speaker 1: we've established what tea is and where it's spring from,
Speaker 1: and referenced some of the mythological ideas about tea and
Speaker 1: read a couple of poems, this most recent was Tanged Honesty,
Speaker 1: by the way, at this point, I think it's time
Speaker 1: to discuss the history of tea in a little more detail,
Speaker 1: especially as it concerns the ways that it can be
Speaker 1: prepared and was prepared across time. So I think it
Speaker 1: makes sense, first of all, to just look at some
Speaker 1: of the steps that are frequently employed in preparing tea
Speaker 1: after it's been harvest what happens between it growing on
Speaker 1: the plant that we discussed in part one and somehow
Speaker 1: making it into a cup or bowl of tea the beverage.
Speaker 2: Right, and so one thing we talked about in the
Speaker 2: previous episode is how different types of tea that you get,
Speaker 2: say black tea versus green tea versus white or oolong,
Speaker 2: they will usually be from the same plant or the
Speaker 2: same of a couple of variants of this plant, Camellia senensus.
Speaker 2: There's one tea plant, and so the differences you get
Speaker 2: in the different teas are based on how it is
Speaker 2: processed and prepared.
Speaker 1: Right, right. So one of the books I've been looking
Speaker 1: at here is Laura C. Martin's A History of Tea,
Speaker 1: and I think the author does a fabulous job laying
Speaker 1: out the history and also the different steps involved in
Speaker 1: creating these beverages of tea. She points out that no
Speaker 1: matter what sort of tea preparation you're talking about, certain
Speaker 1: steps are common to many of them. Not all varieties
Speaker 1: of tea involve all the steps, but it's worth going
Speaker 1: over them all and then we can say, well, this
Speaker 1: one doesn't involve this step, and this one does involve
Speaker 1: this step.
Speaker 2: Okay. So it starts, of course, with the gathering of
Speaker 2: the leaves. Usually on tea farms, they will be collected
Speaker 2: as flushes, these sort of top buds of a couple
Speaker 2: leaves and a shoot coming off the top of the plant.
Speaker 2: Those will be harvested and the rest of the plant
Speaker 2: will be left there to produce new flushes in the future.
Speaker 2: And so you gather a bunch of these flushes of leaves,
Speaker 2: and then what do you do with them?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you could, I guess, just stick them in your mouth.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. If you do that in certainly
Speaker 1: we have some of these tails of some of these
Speaker 1: mythical origins of tea saying that's what happened, people stuck
Speaker 1: it in their mouth, And you know that might well
Speaker 1: be connected to some of the original ways that human
Speaker 1: beings explore the natures of the tea plant leaves and
Speaker 1: even gain some of the effects. But if you just
Speaker 1: stick them in your mouth and start chewing, it's going
Speaker 1: to be really bitter. So this is at this point
Speaker 1: we have the first step of withering. So the fresh
Speaker 1: green leaves and buds are dried out, either in a
Speaker 1: heated room of some sort or they're left in the sun,
Speaker 1: and this causes the starch in the leaves to begin
Speaker 1: transforming into sugar and the moisture content drops by fifty
Speaker 1: to eighty percent, and this allows the next possible step
Speaker 1: to take place, which is the rolling of the tea
Speaker 1: leaves and then be able to roll it without breaking
Speaker 1: the leaves. This is something you might have to think
Speaker 1: back to your childhood days of like playing with leaves
Speaker 1: and sticks. But sometimes if a leaf is fresh and
Speaker 1: you go to like roll it up, it's going to
Speaker 1: it's going to break, all right. The rolling part here
Speaker 1: is often done via machines today but was historically done
Speaker 1: by hand, and the rolling without breaking here twists and
Speaker 1: crushes the leaves in a way that releases SAP, exposes
Speaker 1: it to oxygen, and stimulates fermentation. Additional rolling and or
Speaker 1: sifting may take place here as well, so that's step two. Now.
Speaker 2: One reason you might be rolling or sort of bruising
Speaker 2: these leaves in some way essentially handling them roughly, is
Speaker 2: in order to stimulate oxidation. Oxidation in general refers to
Speaker 2: a broad class of chemical reactions that take place when
Speaker 2: molecules are exposed to oxygen or another oxidizing agent, and
Speaker 2: a core feature of an oxidation reaction is that the
Speaker 2: molecules that are getting oxidized are losing electrons, but that
Speaker 2: doesn't tell as much. It's usually it's some type of
Speaker 2: chemical reaction. Now, it's interesting that the deliberate oxidation of
Speaker 2: tea leaves is an important stage in their processing, especially
Speaker 2: for producing darker teas, less so for greener teas, because
Speaker 2: most often oxidation in foods is not something you want.
Speaker 2: It's an undesirable outcome associated with spoilage and ransidity. So
Speaker 2: some examples, and I guess these would be the closest analogies.
Speaker 2: There are oxidation reactions of various types, like there's oxidation
Speaker 2: of fats and so forth in oils. But for an
Speaker 2: analogy in plants, think about when you cut an apple.
Speaker 2: So you cut an apple in half and you leave
Speaker 2: it out on the counter. What happens, Oh, it turns brown, right,
Speaker 2: And this browning is not generally considered good. It's not
Speaker 2: something that makes the apple harmful to eat, but most
Speaker 2: of the time people don't find it very appetizing. It
Speaker 2: changes the appearance and sometimes the flavor and texture as well,
Speaker 2: and you know, tastes can vary, but most people would
Speaker 2: not say that is a type of browning that they
Speaker 2: seek out on purpose. And this is actually true of
Speaker 2: many foods, especially fruits. So you can think of the
Speaker 2: way avocados brown once they're cut or smashed and left
Speaker 2: out on the counter, or potatoes or any number of
Speaker 2: other plant based foods. The chemical reaction taking place here
Speaker 2: is a form of oxidation called enzymatic browning and insomatic
Speaker 2: browning is due to an enzyme called polyphenol oxidase. Fruits
Speaker 2: and vegetables have compounds in them called phenolic compounds, and
Speaker 2: when these compounds get exposed to both oxygen and to
Speaker 2: that enzyme to polyphenol oxidase at the same time. They
Speaker 2: react with the oxygen and go through a multi step
Speaker 2: transformation process that ends with them turning into melanin. Melanin
Speaker 2: is a natural brown pigment that you can find in
Speaker 2: all forms of life. It's in plants, it's in fungi,
Speaker 2: it's in animals including us. It's the brown pigment in
Speaker 2: human hair and skin and inner irises. And so that
Speaker 2: process naturally takes place once you cut an apple or
Speaker 2: a banana or any of these foods. But how come
Speaker 2: this chemical reaction turning phenolic compounds into melanin doesn't happen
Speaker 2: once the when the apple is just like sitting there
Speaker 2: on the counter uncut. How come it only happens once
Speaker 2: you cut it. This is because in order for the
Speaker 2: reaction to happen, we need three different substances to come
Speaker 2: into contact with one another. So you need the phenolic
Speaker 2: compounds the base molecules were transforming. You need the enzyme,
Speaker 2: which in this case is polyphenol oxidase, and you need
Speaker 2: the free oxygen in the air. And when all three
Speaker 2: elements are present, there together, then you get this browning process.
Speaker 2: So in plant tissue, the enzyme, the polyphenol oxidase, and
Speaker 2: the phenolic compounds are usually kept separate from one another.
Speaker 2: But damage to the plant, such as cutting it open
Speaker 2: or bashing it and bruising it, will rupture cells and
Speaker 2: cause these chemicals to blend together and unite, And then
Speaker 2: you expose them to air and the oxidation happens. Now,
Speaker 2: coming back to what I said earlier, ensomatic browning is
Speaker 2: considered undesirable in lots of foods like you know you
Speaker 2: do you, but most people would rather eat their apple slices, bananas, avocados,
Speaker 2: and so forth before they sit out on the counter
Speaker 2: for a few hours and turn brown. The browned versions
Speaker 2: of these plants kind of look and taste degraded, not
Speaker 2: exactly fresh. But in other plants, the browning process has
Speaker 2: a desirable outcome. It is used on purpose to achieve
Speaker 2: desirable improvements in appearance, texture, and flavor. One example would
Speaker 2: be in certain dried fruits like raisins go through enzomatic
Speaker 2: browning it deliberately in order to create new and interesting
Speaker 2: flavors that people like. And another example might be in
Speaker 2: seeds or leaves used to prove strongly flavored caffeinated beverages.
Speaker 2: Oxidative browning is specifically sought out as part of the
Speaker 2: preparation process for tea leaves. So you can think about
Speaker 2: the process of say, rolling tea leaves around, like smashing
Speaker 2: them or rolling them in a tumbler of some kind
Speaker 2: in order to kind of like bruise and just rough
Speaker 2: up the leaves to these get these different compounds coming together,
Speaker 2: and expose them to oxygen to trigger the sprowning process. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I like to come back to the apple example, the
Speaker 1: apple that's spilt, it falls out of the bowl and
Speaker 1: falls off the counter and rolls across the floor. You know,
Speaker 1: that's the one that gets all bruised up, and those
Speaker 1: bruises are brown. That's the oxidation taking place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And again you know you don't usually want
Speaker 2: that in an apple, but it turns out you do
Speaker 2: it to a tea leaf, and oh it's producing all
Speaker 2: these nice, interesting new aromas and flavors. It's making the
Speaker 2: tea taste. I think a lot of tea producers would
Speaker 2: say it makes it. It sort of takes away some
Speaker 2: of the fresh, grassy flavor of green tea and introduces
Speaker 2: these complex sweet flavors that taste more like a floral
Speaker 2: aromas or like fruits.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it creates this whole additional dimension of flavor. Now,
Speaker 1: this this stage of oxidation here, Martin stresses that it
Speaker 1: is it's super important for determining the flavor destination of
Speaker 1: the tea. It typically takes about three hours if it
Speaker 1: is done. The leaves are left on trays and a cool,
Speaker 1: damp place often and the oxidation causes them to turn
Speaker 1: from green to kind of a copper color. They also
Speaker 1: heat up during this phase, and you also and you
Speaker 1: have to depending on exactly what you're doing with the
Speaker 1: tea leaves, you may have to halt it as well,
Speaker 1: because you don't want the oxidation to go too far,
Speaker 1: because then you'll end up with what's described as kind
Speaker 1: of a burnt taste. It's also really important to note
Speaker 1: here that not all teas go through this phase, and
Speaker 1: this should seem pretty obvious that black tea does go
Speaker 1: through the oxidation phase and is therefore fully oxidized. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is why it is this black or red color.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And to and to pick up on and clarify
Speaker 2: something you said a minute ago, heating, I think is
Speaker 2: usually specifically used to stop the oxidation process. So if
Speaker 2: you want a green tea that has a nice fresh,
Speaker 2: sort of grassy vegetable flavor and keeps its green color,
Speaker 2: those are usually going to be heated earlier to stop
Speaker 2: the oxidation from progressing any further, whereas a black tea
Speaker 2: you would let go through way more oxidation before heating
Speaker 2: it in a little oven.
Speaker 1: Now, just this is a cultivation note, but I ended
Speaker 1: up throwing it into my notes here, so I'm going
Speaker 1: to read it before I forget about it. Originally, tea
Speaker 1: trees were, of course wild, and they would grow in
Speaker 1: the wild, and they grew quite tall. The higher leaves
Speaker 1: were obtained by simply cutting down the tree. This wouldn't
Speaker 1: work long term, of course, and so with cultivation comes
Speaker 1: the pruning and the non lethal harvesting of the leaves.
Speaker 1: So I just found that interesting.
Speaker 2: Okay, So that's why you get this process of like
Speaker 2: taking the flushes off of the top instead of fully
Speaker 2: culing the plant.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but back to the process. Okay, so we've had
Speaker 1: we've had the first step here of withering, then rolling,
Speaker 1: then oxidation, and then we get into the step of drying.
Speaker 1: This is a quick drying to stop the oxidation at
Speaker 1: desired levels, So we've kind of alluded to this already
Speaker 1: as well as to remove enough moisture to prevent mold
Speaker 1: from forming. But you also can't dry it out too
Speaker 1: much or the tea could again taste burnt or on
Speaker 1: the other end of the spectrum, it could lose its flavor.
Speaker 1: All right, And then with the fourth step done, we're
Speaker 1: under the fifth and this is grating and sorting. Basically,
Speaker 1: what you're left with. You got to figure out what
Speaker 1: you've got, and generally what you have is you have
Speaker 1: whole leaves, you have broken leaves, you have the dinnings,
Speaker 1: and you have dust. Whole is the best, that's the
Speaker 1: highest quality, while and then broken leaves and then fannings
Speaker 1: and dust that tends to go into cheaper things like
Speaker 1: you know, tea bags and so forth. Again, not all
Speaker 1: teas go through all of these phases. Black tea goes
Speaker 1: through all five. Oolong tea is partially oxidized. Green teas
Speaker 1: are dried after rolling to prevent oxidation at all. White
Speaker 1: tea doesn't go through withering, fermentation or rolling. Now, this
Speaker 1: doesn't cover anywhere near all the teas out there. In
Speaker 1: the different types of teas, there are plenty of sub
Speaker 1: varieties of each, and then there are blends as well,
Speaker 1: Like one common example is English Breakfast Tea, which is
Speaker 1: a blend of black teas.
Speaker 2: Now there's a whole other class of complex chemical reactions
Speaker 2: that teas undergo, separate from the baseline oxidation process we've
Speaker 2: been talking about, which is fermentation, a whole other thing
Speaker 2: where you are deliberately introducing microbial growth to further create
Speaker 2: complex flavors and aromas.
Speaker 1: That's right, And at this point I want to mention
Speaker 1: the poorer teas. These are a special case. These are
Speaker 1: again one of my favorite tea varieties, and actually our
Speaker 1: producer jj I was chatting with him he also really
Speaker 1: likes these, and I imagine we have a number of
Speaker 1: listeners who are fond of these as well.
Speaker 2: But these are fermented teas, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's so these teas are generally made from larger, older
Speaker 1: leaves that I believe Martin described as almost being kind
Speaker 1: of like hairy, you know, they're they're they're they're really
Speaker 1: big old leaves. And also there's an enough moisture is
Speaker 1: allowed to remain in them, so that they can continue
Speaker 1: to ferment for years. Uh. This is this is the
Speaker 1: only variety of tea that improves with age. The teas
Speaker 1: stored away in bricks or cakes. Also, they're often various wrappings,
Speaker 1: like sometimes it's like a like a bamboo type situation
Speaker 1: or some sort of fabric wrapping and and ends up
Speaker 1: with just a wide beret of flavors that are at
Speaker 1: least in my experience, unlike any other teas I've tried,
Speaker 1: h they often have the ones I've I keep coming
Speaker 1: back to have kind of a often kind of like
Speaker 1: a barnyard flavor, kind of straw or hay to them.
Speaker 1: One of them that I really love is just especially dark.
Speaker 1: It's like it's like a bowl or a cup of midnight.
Speaker 1: And like I say, they're often you often you'll find
Speaker 1: these in kind of like a loose leaf situation, but
Speaker 1: you also find them in little pucks, little bricks, big
Speaker 1: cakes that you have to chip away with a special
Speaker 1: little ornate knife. I mean you could use a normal
Speaker 1: butter knife or your car keys, I guess, but you know,
Speaker 1: get into it. This is tea we're talking about. But
Speaker 1: these have a fascinating history not only as just being
Speaker 1: t bricks, but being used as money as well, with
Speaker 1: the prime example being taking place in Tibet. As Wolfgang
Speaker 1: Birch points out in the use of tea bricks as
Speaker 1: currency among the Tibetans in the Tibet Journal, the Chinese
Speaker 1: introduced tea to Tibet sometime prior to seven eighty c.
Speaker 1: And while it was first used as more of a
Speaker 1: pure bartering commodity, you know, I'll trade you a brick
Speaker 1: of tea for this, that or the other, it eventually
Speaker 1: took on a form that we might reasonably refer to
Speaker 1: as currency, a regimented system of tea e bricks based
Speaker 1: on the tea's quality and pureeness, and eventually imprinted with
Speaker 1: trademarks and seals. So you might think of it almost like,
Speaker 1: you know, you think of like a bar of gold
Speaker 1: that has been imprinted with governmental information, Like here's the
Speaker 1: seal of the of the governing body saying this is
Speaker 1: an approved grade of gold, the amount of gold, et cetera.
Speaker 1: It's the exact same thing with these t bricks. The
Speaker 1: governing authority has said this is such and such tea
Speaker 1: of such and such quality, and it is a certain
Speaker 1: amount of it. It's usable as currency in this scenario.
Speaker 2: That's interesting. It makes me think, I don't know this,
Speaker 2: but I'm wondering. So in this case, would this have
Speaker 2: been a fermented type of tea since it's in yet form.
Speaker 2: That makes me think about how, you know, if you're
Speaker 2: going to try to use a commonly consumed, say food
Speaker 2: or drink item as a currency, it would be difficult
Speaker 2: to use one that quickly degrades in quality, for like
Speaker 2: its use value. So if it's something we're freshness really matters,
Speaker 2: you would not want the use value of your currency
Speaker 2: to degrade fast over the course of a few months.
Speaker 2: But if it's like a fermented tea, you mentioned that
Speaker 2: these get better with age rather than declining, so you
Speaker 2: can at least hope your currency there keeps its value.
Speaker 2: Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it would keep its value. Of anything, it
Speaker 1: would increase in value, though I don't remember reading anything
Speaker 1: about how that would be decided upon, but I guess
Speaker 1: it would be subject to like the going rate for
Speaker 1: te's of a particular harvest and maturity level, you know,
Speaker 1: like you all the information would be there on the seal.
Speaker 2: This is a side note. I wonder how economies are
Speaker 2: different when they have a currency that does have in
Speaker 2: some cases a use value of its own, like you know,
Speaker 2: if you're not going to use it for trade, you
Speaker 2: would use it for something else, like you would literally
Speaker 2: eat it or drink it, versus economies that just have
Speaker 2: a currency that is purely useless on its own, it's
Speaker 2: only for facilitating trade, like US dollars.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean for gold, I guess is not quite
Speaker 1: an example of that, because even historically gold was still
Speaker 1: desired as something that could be used for ornamentation, whereas
Speaker 1: today it also has technology electronics uses as well.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: The other really good example of this is the use
Speaker 1: of chocolate in some Mesoamerican cultures, where that the chocolate
Speaker 1: was such a highly regarded commodity and one that I
Speaker 1: guess had kind of generalized sizes and measurements that it
Speaker 1: could be used as currency as well. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Interesting question. Maybe we'll come back to that one day.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So at this point that we might get more
Speaker 1: into the timeline of tea with the primary interest in
Speaker 1: sort of the evolution of the way that it is
Speaker 1: prepared and ultimately consumed. As we explored in the last episode,
Speaker 1: the origin of tea drinking is more mythology than historical fact.
Speaker 1: It's one of the those things where if you try
Speaker 1: and answer the question of, like, well, who invented tea?
Speaker 1: Who came up with this? It's basically lost to prehistory.
Speaker 1: These are things where we have some interesting myths that
Speaker 1: kind of sum up some of the general ideas and
Speaker 1: ultimately some of the general realities of how human beings
Speaker 1: experimented with and chronicled the nature of their botanical world.
Speaker 1: But in general we can't answer it. There's no one person.
Speaker 1: Though again, some of these accounts do have a sort
Speaker 1: of an interesting shred of truth to them, like one
Speaker 1: of the ones that, in addition to the ones we
Speaker 1: discussed in the last episode, there's one that Michael d.
Speaker 1: Co brings up in seventy Great Inventions of the Ancient
Speaker 1: World in a chapter about I Believe Chocolate and Tea.
Speaker 1: There's another myth where a past Chinese emperor was boiling
Speaker 1: some water and some wild leaves just kind of blew
Speaker 1: into his water, boiling in the pot, thus creating tea.
Speaker 1: That of course sounds like pure myth and is not
Speaker 1: like a real story, but it reminds me of our
Speaker 1: episode on the invention of the cauldron, and about how
Speaker 1: like a cauldron or any kind of container even like
Speaker 1: a skin of boiling water, Like what an essential laboratory
Speaker 1: that is for humans in ancient times? Figuring out what
Speaker 1: things are and what they can be used for. Now,
Speaker 1: the question that may come up for some of you
Speaker 1: might think, well, there's a great deal of Chinese literature
Speaker 1: out there going back quiet a way. Can't we just
Speaker 1: see when people first started writing about tea? And I
Speaker 1: think this is a reasonable question to ask. But as
Speaker 1: Martin explains in the book, it's not quite that simple.
Speaker 1: And part of the problem is that the Chinese character
Speaker 1: associated with t was previously used again in literature, in
Speaker 1: writing to refer to other shrubs and plants. For example,
Speaker 1: there are mentions of tea dating back to the fifth
Speaker 1: century BCE, but it's thought that the character in question
Speaker 1: here is just referring to south thistle, a plant sometimes
Speaker 1: used in Chinese cuisine and native to Europe and Western Asia.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, so yeah, frustrating trying to understand the history.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, So we have to think about the fact
Speaker 1: that anytime something like this comes along, like it's not
Speaker 1: just oh, we have this new thing, let's get a
Speaker 1: new word for it, but that's in any language. That's
Speaker 1: not necessarily how it works. I'm reminded of all the
Speaker 1: different apples that Europeans began to discover in the world
Speaker 1: and report back, Yeah, palm de tear. So again, we
Speaker 1: can't pinpoint a time when tea drinking began in China,
Speaker 1: but we can likely say it was certainly a thing
Speaker 1: by the Han dynasty two o six PC through twenty
Speaker 1: twenty CE. Granted that's a large period of time, but
Speaker 1: by that period people were drinking tea. It most likely
Speaker 1: began in Sichuan Province in southwestern China and spread gradually
Speaker 1: to the rest of China, and would have reached northern
Speaker 1: China by the Tang dynasty that period six eighteen through
Speaker 1: nine o seven by the third century, though, according to Martin,
Speaker 1: we do have mentions in the literature of tea that
Speaker 1: we can more firmly connect to actual tea drinking, which
Speaker 1: points out that Hatwo, a noted physician who may have
Speaker 1: also developed one of the earliest forms of anesthesia, also
Speaker 1: wrote about tea quote, to drink tea constantly makes one
Speaker 1: think better.
Speaker 2: That checks out, well, it depends on what you mean
Speaker 2: by constantly. Yeah, I'm not sure about the particulars of
Speaker 2: the translation. There By the way, the anesthesia that he
Speaker 2: supposedly invented, I think they was reading that the name
Speaker 2: literally transplates to cannabis boiling powder, but we still don't
Speaker 2: know exactly what this supposed anesthesia contained. Also, a general
Speaker 2: from the third century, lou Kuhn, wrote that he felt old,
Speaker 2: depressed and needed some real tea when just the impression
Speaker 2: he that he's out doing the military thing and he
Speaker 2: just realizes, Man, I'm just I'm old, I'm sad, and
Speaker 2: I would just kill for an actual cup of tea
Speaker 2: instead of I guess boiling various other things that we're
Speaker 2: finding in in nature around us M. So you could
Speaker 2: you could have fake teas. There's like, if you can't
Speaker 2: get real tea from Camellia sinensis, you might just try
Speaker 2: boiling other plant matter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, the history of tea is kind of
Speaker 1: full of these examples, and not only the history of tea,
Speaker 1: but I guess the history of of like pharmacology, and
Speaker 1: that's no pharmacology in general. I think we've touched a
Speaker 1: little bit on this before talking about psychedelics, where you'll
Speaker 1: have some historians think you'll have one particular custom of
Speaker 1: using a particular herb or plant that is growing in
Speaker 1: the natural environment. But what happens when people move? What
Speaker 1: happens when there's a migration. Yes, in many cases you
Speaker 1: can bring your plants with you. Sometimes those plants don't
Speaker 1: survive though, Sometimes they can't be brought anyway, or you
Speaker 1: just that the people that bring them are not able
Speaker 1: to keep those plants going in these new places they
Speaker 1: move to. And in those cases you might try to
Speaker 1: find some sort of reasonable facsimile, like what's something else
Speaker 1: that does something that changes me a little bit when
Speaker 1: I boil it in water and drink it. So we
Speaker 1: may come back to some of that in a pit.
Speaker 1: And then Martin also points that by let's say, around
Speaker 1: three point fifty CE, there's a more detailed description of
Speaker 1: the tea plant that we seem pretty sure is an
Speaker 1: actual description of tea. And this is provided by go
Speaker 1: Poo again around three fifty C.
Speaker 2: Now, I guess one thing I wonder is it's one
Speaker 2: thing to talk about. Okay, we're taking leaves of this
Speaker 2: specific plant and boiling them to make tea, But it's
Speaker 2: another thing to think about, like all of the complex
Speaker 2: preparation process steps and the different varieties of tea pretty today.
Speaker 2: Do you have any idea when that sort of thing
Speaker 2: started to come online, or at least when we have
Speaker 2: the earliest evidence of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is this is interesting because one thing that
Speaker 1: Martin points out is that early on tea was probably
Speaker 1: not good. It would have been nothing like what we're
Speaker 1: having today. It would have been we could almost think
Speaker 1: of it more as kind of this herbal soup, and
Speaker 1: you'd have various things added to it in an attempt
Speaker 1: to improve the flavor profile. And you might be thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: like delightful flowers and stuff. No, things like onions might
Speaker 1: be added. It is just a way to improve the flavor.
Speaker 1: And I believe Martin, I believe mentioned that this probably
Speaker 1: also didn't work. It was just so strong a flavor
Speaker 1: you couldn't really improve on it all that much. But
Speaker 1: you drank it because you know it was there were
Speaker 1: already some healthful associations with it, and you know, maybe
Speaker 1: it wasn't making it was sick because it was boiled,
Speaker 1: et cetera. But during the time of the Northern Way
Speaker 1: Dynasty three eighty six through five thirty five, apparently the
Speaker 1: tea processing had improved, at least to what we might
Speaker 1: think of as a basic level. There are mentions of
Speaker 1: cakes made of tea leaves that have been roasted. It
Speaker 1: was probably still a lot cruder compared to things that
Speaker 1: were gonna come, or certainly cruder than things that you
Speaker 1: would think of today as desirable teas. But the journey
Speaker 1: toward more complex flavors was underway, and I'm assuming you
Speaker 1: were maybe not having to put onions in your tea
Speaker 1: anymore now. During the fifth century CE, there's also examples
Speaker 1: of tea tributes being made to the imperial court and
Speaker 1: to the emperor himself, and also the emperor was said
Speaker 1: to have his own tea reserves as well, like these
Speaker 1: were places where just the emperor's tea was grown. So
Speaker 1: already it was presumably flavors are improving, and also the
Speaker 1: ruling class, the elites of society are really getting attached
Speaker 1: to the idea of tea. But then the Tang dynasty
Speaker 1: six eighteen through nine oh seven, this is the period
Speaker 1: in which we see Chinese tea in the form of
Speaker 1: baked bricks of green tea, which are ideal for travel,
Speaker 1: spreading to new parts of the Empire and beyond. Martin
Speaker 1: also writes that this widespread technique also greatly improved the flavor.
Speaker 1: The popularity of tea spread so much during this time
Speaker 1: that it was no longer just a drink of the
Speaker 1: elite of the emperor and his court. It was a
Speaker 1: drink for everybody, even peasants by this point were we're
Speaker 1: getting in on tea culture. That doesn't mean everybody would
Speaker 1: have access to the same tea. Of course, with the
Speaker 1: type of tea you drank would be intrinsically linked to
Speaker 1: your place in society, as would the various paraphernalia that
Speaker 1: were used in tea preparation and tea consumption, but it
Speaker 1: was essentially something that could be found throughout society. Also,
Speaker 1: this would again have been exclusively green tea, as red
Speaker 1: black tea would not be developed for centuries to come.
Speaker 1: And this is the time of an individual by the
Speaker 1: name of lou U. This would have been in the
Speaker 1: eighth century. He was known as the Immortal of T
Speaker 1: the Sage of T, and he was author of the
Speaker 1: Classic of.
Speaker 2: T The Classic of T. I see a similarity in
Speaker 2: the English naming convention of some of these great old
Speaker 2: Chinese texts similar to like the Classic of Mountains and
Speaker 2: Seas exactly, Yes, I forget exactly what that is translated from, though,
Speaker 2: Like what are all the range of meanings in the original?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but certainly this is a common translation of
Speaker 1: some of these important books. I would think you could.
Speaker 1: You might roughly think of it the same way that
Speaker 1: important books might in the Western traditions might be preferred
Speaker 1: to as like the book of such and such or
Speaker 1: a chronicle of such and such.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, this is an interesting figure Louu though, because there
Speaker 1: are a number of legends about him as well. You know,
Speaker 1: he's definitely a historic individual and author. It seems that
Speaker 1: folks agree on that. But there are all these additional stories,
Speaker 1: such as that he was abandoned and subsequently adopted by
Speaker 1: Buddhist monks. Also, there's this other story that he and
Speaker 1: I think these all kind of work together, or at
Speaker 1: least were eventually stitched together into one narrative that he
Speaker 1: was then trained. He then trained to be a clown
Speaker 1: in the opera, and this was his lifelong ambition, but
Speaker 1: then he ended up becoming a scholar instead. He started
Speaker 1: spending a lot of time in tea houses, which was
Speaker 1: a popular hangout at the time. And this reminds me
Speaker 1: a bit of accounts of tea and coffee houses in
Speaker 1: later European history as a kind of like cultural incubator.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a place where like the poet resides.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. And so he has this supposed trajectory that's
Speaker 1: pretty interesting, Like he starts off as as an abandoned child,
Speaker 1: becomes a monk, then becomes a clown, then becomes a scholar,
Speaker 1: and then essentially becomes the immortal of tea.
Speaker 2: It implies tea being kind of like the highest level achievable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does. And I think that matches up with
Speaker 1: the way that he was received and regarded. But it
Speaker 1: goes beyond like you might think, Okay, he wrote this
Speaker 1: scholarly work about tea, and I bet the scholarly class
Speaker 1: really loved it. But as Martin points out, this work
Speaker 1: had a huge impact on tea and society, as it
Speaker 1: gave agriculturists and farmers the first real written account of
Speaker 1: how to cultivate and process tea. Everything before the Classic
Speaker 1: of Tea was just orally transmitted or was unknown to
Speaker 1: individuals who might want to partake of it and cultivate
Speaker 1: their own tea. His work made tea cultivation accessible, and
Speaker 1: it included everything that was known at the time about tea,
Speaker 1: where you could grow it, how to grow it, how
Speaker 1: to harvest it and prepare it, the culture of drinking it,
Speaker 1: the twenty four implements required to prepare tea in the home,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: Whoa, that's a lot of implements, Yeah, and a lot
Speaker 2: of just sort of advice on what is proper.
Speaker 1: Like. For instance, I was reading in Martin that he
Speaker 1: was a big fan of using blue glazed cups to
Speaker 1: enhance the green color of the tea, while he thought
Speaker 1: that white cups or bowls would give it a distasteful
Speaker 1: pink color.
Speaker 2: This is interesting in part because it reminds me of
Speaker 2: the passages in Plenty of the Elder where he's like, Hey,
Speaker 2: if you're gonna boil like some sweet sapa to drink,
Speaker 2: you better do it in a lead pot instead of
Speaker 2: a copper one, because the copper makes it bitter, the
Speaker 2: lead makes it sweet. I assume he's not talking about
Speaker 2: actual changes in flavor here, but truly just appearance. But
Speaker 2: this is also quite observant because I think, as like
Speaker 2: chefs and people who work in restaurants will tell you
Speaker 2: the appearance and color of your plates really does affect
Speaker 2: how people perceive the food.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, absolutely. And then of course there's so much
Speaker 1: ritual on top of all of this, you know. Martin
Speaker 1: stresses that while some of this might seem just you know,
Speaker 1: over the top and perhaps too fancy, we have to
Speaker 1: remind ourselves that this is a world where individuals like
Speaker 1: lou U are striving for universal perfection. So that's and
Speaker 1: we have to think about it too in light of Confucianism, Taoism,
Speaker 1: and Buddhism as well, which are all important energies in
Speaker 1: the world surrounding this growing tea culture. Now, the popularity
Speaker 1: of the Classic of Teas not only spread the word
Speaker 1: of tea, it also further enhanced its popularity and pushed
Speaker 1: both greater tea trade and greater advancements in how it
Speaker 1: was cultivated and prepared. Tea also spread throughout China during
Speaker 1: this time because it had become just so embraced by
Speaker 1: Buddhist practice and culture. But it's also meant that when
Speaker 1: Buddhism fell out of favor during the decline of the
Speaker 1: Tang dynasty, tea culture did as well. And this would
Speaker 1: this was a trend that would recur when foreign invaders
Speaker 1: would control parts of China, Tea culture would suffer in
Speaker 1: that area.
Speaker 2: Interesting, does that mean it was replaced by something or
Speaker 2: I wonder what caused that correlation.
Speaker 1: It's based on what I was reading, and there may
Speaker 1: be more nuanced to this, and more and more to this,
Speaker 1: but it would just be a situation where it was
Speaker 1: linked with the with the ruling party. You know, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like a top down cultural practice and without
Speaker 1: without Tea culture emanating from sort of a you know,
Speaker 1: in radiating waves from the ruling body, it kind of
Speaker 1: falls out of favor and you have people maybe following,
Speaker 1: and you're going to have cultural trans transmission taking place
Speaker 1: there too. Of course, because you also see in the
Speaker 1: in the histories where you know, some some groups, say
Speaker 1: the Mongols becomes the ruling body in a part of China,
Speaker 1: they also become more Chinese as they rule, So you know,
Speaker 1: the cultural transmission goes both ways. But it seems like
Speaker 1: you would have these situations where a foreign power would
Speaker 1: take control for a while and yet just Tea popularity
Speaker 1: would wane, but then when inevitably Chinese rule was restored
Speaker 1: to these areas you would see the reverse and one
Speaker 1: of the examples of this would be nine sixty. See
Speaker 1: the rule of the Song dynasty brought tea back to
Speaker 1: the forefront. Its trade during this period became so important
Speaker 1: that the Imperial court found that they could just restrict
Speaker 1: or manipulate the flow of tea to outlying regions if
Speaker 1: deemed necessary. So it would be a way to control
Speaker 1: and manipulate other groups, such as determining how much tea
Speaker 1: goes to, say, to bat or to the Mongols, or
Speaker 1: to the Turks and others. Almost kind of like a
Speaker 1: spice trade of Dune sort of scenario, you know. And
Speaker 1: certainly that's the sort of thing that Frank Herbert was
Speaker 1: thinking of when he was right. Maybe not tea specifically,
Speaker 1: but obviously this control of a desired or vital resource
Speaker 1: by one particular body.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's also during this time period, Martin rights, that we
Speaker 1: enter the second school or phase of tea. So this
Speaker 1: first phase had been the brick era. Again, we're talking
Speaker 1: about those bricks of tea, you know, how it's dried
Speaker 1: and then often stored, et cetera. But then we're entering
Speaker 1: at this point the whipped school and It's called the
Speaker 1: whipped school due to the creation and popularity of dried
Speaker 1: and powdered green tea that was then whipped in boiling
Speaker 1: water till it's foamy. This is what we typically call
Speaker 1: macha tea today, and it was a huge hit during
Speaker 1: this time period. Of course, has remained whip us.
Speaker 2: Oh that's interesting, Okay, I guess I do associate macha
Speaker 2: tea with looking kind of foamy, but I didn't realize
Speaker 2: why that was. So it's like typically more of a
Speaker 2: powder form that is whipped into the water vigorously.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, like generally you'll have and we'll probably come
Speaker 1: back around them to macha here in a bit and
Speaker 1: talk about it in especially in relation to Japanese tea culture.
Speaker 1: But yeah, even if you get it today, you're probably
Speaker 1: gonna get some sort of one variety or another of macha,
Speaker 1: perhaps like a ceremonial grade tea. You're gonna put that
Speaker 1: in your in your bowl or cup, and once you
Speaker 1: have the hot water, you're gonna you're gonna want to
Speaker 1: whip it up. There's gonna be a special implement to
Speaker 1: do that, and this of course can also be quite exceptional.
Speaker 2: Okay, So we go from brick to the whipped powder,
Speaker 2: and then does it does it change after that, because
Speaker 2: that still doesn't resemble the most of the tea preparation
Speaker 2: I can think of today, which is based on steeping.
Speaker 1: Right right, Well, that is gonna eventually be the third school,
Speaker 1: the school of steeping, as in like loose leaf tea especially,
Speaker 1: and we are still in this school today, Martin Wright.
Speaker 1: So of course all three of these are still used.
Speaker 1: I don't know if there's gonna be a fourth phase
Speaker 1: of tea.
Speaker 2: I don't know the laser school of tea.
Speaker 1: All right, there's more to the history of tea, and
Speaker 1: we'll keep going with the history of tea in a
Speaker 1: future episode here, but I thought it might be fun
Speaker 1: at this point to discuss tea and health.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier how Martin pointed out that by the
Speaker 1: fourth century CE, T consumption was probably part of daily
Speaker 1: life for many in China, but it wasn't good. You
Speaker 1: were having to mask it with things like you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes things like citrus or ginger, which doesn't sound that bad,
Speaker 1: but other times you're putting salt and onions in it,
Speaker 1: all to try and make it more palpable. But you
Speaker 1: were consuming it because it had perceived health benefits. You
Speaker 1: also might just eat your tea leaves straight like a
Speaker 1: vegetable in this time. Still, though again it would have
Speaker 1: been bitter. It would not have been a pleasant experience.
Speaker 1: You Also, I was surprised by this. You also might
Speaker 1: have sniffed it like snuff, So that would be a
Speaker 1: sort of a you know, an approach to powdered tea
Speaker 1: that I didn't think about. Also, not what I'm saying
Speaker 1: anyone needs to try, but it was one method that
Speaker 1: was used, as was sometimes using it externally, like you know,
Speaker 1: applying it just to the skin, or perhaps to some
Speaker 1: sort of skin irritation like a poultice. Yeah, so it
Speaker 1: was widely used during this time. Again not because it
Speaker 1: was necessarily pleasant to have. But first of all, it
Speaker 1: was associated with wakefulness and digestion, which I think these
Speaker 1: are both agreed upon effects of caffeine. If you've had caffeine,
Speaker 1: or explored caffeine, or even been around people that use caffeine,
Speaker 1: you probably know that this is the case. Like caffeine
Speaker 1: can can wake you up, it can make you more alert,
Speaker 1: it can also speed up digestion. And yeah, and that's
Speaker 1: why if you go to a coffee house or a
Speaker 1: tea house these days, there may be a weight at
Speaker 1: the bathroom, and there may be a lot of people
Speaker 1: with you know, a lot of crackling energy.
Speaker 2: But it's worth it because, as Lou Tong said, it
Speaker 2: searches the dry rivulets of the soul, helps you find
Speaker 2: the stories of five thousand scrolls. Yeah, I'd say that
Speaker 2: still checks out caffeine effects on cognition.
Speaker 1: At the same time, though it was also used during
Speaker 1: this time as of treatment for everything from poor eyesight
Speaker 1: to skin and organ issues. It was also considered a
Speaker 1: strong preventative medicine and something that positively impacted one's chi.
Speaker 1: So we again, so we're seeing like the full spectrum
Speaker 1: here of possible and perceived uses for tea that benefited
Speaker 1: your current ailments, prevented other ailments, and maybe even affected
Speaker 1: sort of spiritual energy concepts regarding the functionality of the
Speaker 1: human body.
Speaker 2: Yes, now, because we've raised the question in the historical
Speaker 2: context here of beliefs about t and its positive impacts
Speaker 2: on health, I think it's worth looking at what's some
Speaker 2: of the modern major nutrition science findings on the health
Speaker 2: effects of tr But strong caveat I'm not going to
Speaker 2: go deep on this because I just feel personally, like,
Speaker 2: you know, we look at a lot of different domains
Speaker 2: of science, and I feel like there is no quicker
Speaker 2: way to lose your mind than looking for scientific papers
Speaker 2: on a question of is this common food or drink
Speaker 2: item good or bad for your health? Coffee, tea, chocolate, wine,
Speaker 2: a million other things. It always seems like there are
Speaker 2: just reams of conflicting results, some of which sound prima
Speaker 2: faci absurd and probably are, you know, like a study
Speaker 2: show wine cures heart disease or something like that. And
Speaker 2: I detect the presence of persistent methodological problems with attempts
Speaker 2: to look at this kind of thing specifically, like does
Speaker 2: a common food or drink item that people consume for
Speaker 2: pleasure or for other reasons have you know, X broad
Speaker 2: health effect. But with that caveat, I'm going to cite
Speaker 2: the findings of a major meta analysis that I looked
Speaker 2: at from twenty nineteen. So this was by Mengshi Yi
Speaker 2: called Tea Consumption and Health Outcome Umbrella Review of Meta
Speaker 2: Analysis of Observational Studies in Humans. This was published in
Speaker 2: the journal Molecular Nutrition and Food Research and twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: So this study is an umbrella review, also known as
Speaker 2: a review of reviews, which kind of gives you an
Speaker 2: idea how much research there is on the topic, so
Speaker 2: to picture where this rests in the research hierarchy. Of course,
Speaker 2: you can have individual studies or experiments on the effect
Speaker 2: of tea on some particular outcome, and then you can
Speaker 2: have a paper a level above that, which is a
Speaker 2: review or a meta analysis, which compares and analyzes and
Speaker 2: usually averages the results of many different individual studies of
Speaker 2: a bunch. You know, it collects everything it can find
Speaker 2: in the literature and says, when you compare all these
Speaker 2: what results poke out. And then if you have enough
Speaker 2: of those reviews within a subject area, you can have
Speaker 2: an umbrella review, which is a review of reviews. And
Speaker 2: sometimes umbrella reviews are going to have like a broader question. So,
Speaker 2: for example, you can have a meta analysis of studies
Speaker 2: on the relationship between T and cardiovascular disease, and another
Speaker 2: one comparing studies on TA and various cancers, and then
Speaker 2: you could maybe have an umbrella review looking at all
Speaker 2: those meta analyzes to understand the relationship between T and
Speaker 2: health outcomes. More generally, Okay, so sorry about all that preamble.
Speaker 2: But anyway, what did this umbrella review find in the
Speaker 2: existing literature as of twenty nineteen. Well, it looked at
Speaker 2: ninety six meta analyzes addressing forty different health outcomes and
Speaker 2: it concluded that overall, studies showed greater evidence for health
Speaker 2: benefits than for harm to health from T consumption. So
Speaker 2: they say, quote dose response analysis of T consumption indicates
Speaker 2: reduced risks of total mortality, cardiac death, coronary artery disease, stroke,
Speaker 2: and type two diabetes melitis with increment of two to
Speaker 2: three cups per day. Beneficial associations are also found for
Speaker 2: several cancers, skeletal, cognitive, and maternal outcomes. Harmful associations are
Speaker 2: found for a soft geal cancer and gastric cancer when
Speaker 2: the temperature of intake is more than fifty five to
Speaker 2: sixty degrees celsius. So this leads them to the conclusion
Speaker 2: that except for the upper digestive cancer risk that may
Speaker 2: be associated with drinking very hot tea and again greater
Speaker 2: than fifty five to sixty degrees c is about one
Speaker 2: thirty one to one forty degrees fahrenheit. Unless you're drinking
Speaker 2: tea that hot or hotter, normal levels of tea consumption,
Speaker 2: such as two to three cups per day, appear safe,
Speaker 2: and those levels of tea intake are even associated with
Speaker 2: a broad range of apparently positive health effects, the ones
Speaker 2: I mentioned in a minute ago. However, this is a
Speaker 2: very important thing to stress. They acknowledge the difficulty in
Speaker 2: disentangling regular dietary TA consumption from possible confounding variables, and
Speaker 2: so they argue that to really conclude that the observed
Speaker 2: associations are causal, So you know, for example, finding that
Speaker 2: t consumption two to three cups per day might be
Speaker 2: associated with like reduced risk of cardiac death or something
Speaker 2: like that. In order to really be sure that the
Speaker 2: tea is the cause of that and not just some
Speaker 2: random association, you would need to do randomized controlled trials.
Speaker 2: And this is often true. I think when you're looking
Speaker 2: at connections between like common food or drink items and
Speaker 2: health outcomes, you might find that any random thing. People
Speaker 2: who eat kelp on a regular basis have a lower
Speaker 2: risk of pancreatic cancer, but that doesn't actually show that
Speaker 2: it's the kelp that makes the difference. It could be
Speaker 2: that people who have a lower risk of that cancer. Also,
Speaker 2: for some reason, just happen to eat more kelp, And
Speaker 2: the best way to establish the kelp is the cause
Speaker 2: would again be to do a randomized controlled trial, which
Speaker 2: is the gold standard use for testing new drugs and
Speaker 2: so forth, but not always used to examine the health
Speaker 2: effects of common food and drink items such as coffee, chocolate, tea,
Speaker 2: all these things that you see a million conflicting study
Speaker 2: results on tea helps this health effect, and then another
Speaker 2: study says on maybe it doesn't. So in the end,
Speaker 2: I think it's hard to get very solid results on
Speaker 2: these kind of food and drink items. But at least
Speaker 2: the existing research today makes it look like broadly tea
Speaker 2: is pretty safe to drink as long as you're drinking
Speaker 2: it within moderation and not super hot, and may in
Speaker 2: fact have some positive health benefits associated with it, but
Speaker 2: don't bank on those too much.
Speaker 1: Well, these are all great points, Like depending on the study,
Speaker 1: you might be it might be a situation where it's
Speaker 1: the tea cakes that are causing all of the positive
Speaker 1: health effects.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, it may not be causal about drinking the
Speaker 2: tea at all. Maybe it's that people who have lower
Speaker 2: risk of whatever are also just for some reason cultural
Speaker 2: or otherwise more likely to drink tea. Or it could
Speaker 2: be that the act of sitting down and drinking something
Speaker 2: warm from a cup. I mean, I don't know what
Speaker 2: all they compared it to, what controls they used on
Speaker 2: all these different experiments, because there have been a lot
Speaker 2: of them. But that's where the research show looks like
Speaker 2: it lands today. But I did want to note that
Speaker 2: positive health effects of tea could exist and might also
Speaker 2: be construed, not in an absolute sense, but in the
Speaker 2: sense of comparing tea to alternatives, to other things you
Speaker 2: could consume instead of tea.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And in this I want to turn to a
Speaker 1: quote from the herbal classic that I think we reference
Speaker 1: this work in the last episode. It is attributed to
Speaker 1: Shinnong again, the divine farmer with the crystal stomach that
Speaker 1: is in some of the myths, is attributed as discovering tea,
Speaker 1: and the quote resis follows in translation, quote Tea is
Speaker 1: better than wine, for it leadeth not to intoxication, neither
Speaker 1: does it cause a man to say foolish things and
Speaker 1: repent thereof in his sober moments. It is better than water,
Speaker 1: for it does not carry disease. Neither does it act
Speaker 1: like poison as water does when it contains foul and
Speaker 1: rotten matter.
Speaker 2: Hey, that's the couple of I would say, quite solid observations.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think it's fair to agree that
Speaker 1: the over indulgence of tea is less of a public
Speaker 1: or health or safety issue compared to the consumption of alcohol.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then, as Martin points out in her book,
Speaker 1: this last bit is also certainly true. Tea prepared with
Speaker 1: boiling water would rid the water of many of the
Speaker 1: inherent pathogens. So if you're just looking at the difference
Speaker 1: between having a hot cup of tea and drinking or
Speaker 1: rain water or something or any kind of water that
Speaker 1: might be on hand for pure drinking purposes, the tea
Speaker 1: is a healthier choice historically speaking, that seems quite true
Speaker 1: as long as people are, of course not consuming that
Speaker 1: seventh cup of tea and you know, rapturing themselves to
Speaker 1: the Holy Mountain.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, you don't want to accidentally fly to pung
Speaker 2: Lie before you get to work in the morning.
Speaker 1: Right. And yet, to your point, just the idea of
Speaker 1: your drinking tea, then what are you not drinking? You're
Speaker 1: not drinking alcohol. You're not drinking wine, you're not drinking
Speaker 1: water that may, given the circumstances, might not be the
Speaker 1: purest or the healthiest choice at that time. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is all fascinating.
Speaker 2: I think that's going to do it for part two, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think this is all we have time for in
Speaker 1: this episode, but we'll come back for a part three.
Speaker 1: We're gonna look a little more at the history and
Speaker 1: evolution of tea and possibly get into some other tea
Speaker 1: cultures as well, and we'll see what else comes up.
Speaker 1: In the meantime. We'd love to hear from everyone out there,
Speaker 1: because I know we have a lot of tea drinkers
Speaker 1: out there, tea drinkers from different parts of the world,
Speaker 1: different tastes, different experiences. We'd love to hear everything you
Speaker 1: have to say about the matter, So write in let
Speaker 1: us know. I'd love to hear from you. A reminder
Speaker 1: that core episodes of Just to Blow Your Mind published
Speaker 1: on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Monday is listener Mail. Wednesday is
Speaker 1: a short form artifact or monster fact, and on Fridays
Speaker 1: we set aside most serious concerns to talk about a
Speaker 1: weird film on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 2: Huge thanks to our our audio producer, JJ Posway. If
Speaker 2: you would like to get in touch with us with
Speaker 2: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a
Speaker 2: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you
Speaker 2: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
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