WEBVTT - The Myth of Green Tea Hallucinations 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:06.119 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how stupwork 0:00:06.160 --> 0:00:14.520 dot com. Hey you welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:17.000 My name is Robert Lamb and I am Christian Seger. 0:00:17.480 --> 0:00:20.200 So I had an epiphany a couple of days ago 0:00:20.480 --> 0:00:23.880 that's completely turned my life around, and it spawned the 0:00:23.920 --> 0:00:29.080 idea for this episode. Ye. Yeah. For the last almost 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:32.640 twenty years, I have believed that if you drink too 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:37.919 much green tea, you will eventually start hallucinating. And uh, 0:00:38.080 --> 0:00:40.320 it all came from a horror story that I read 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:45.080 in college in a class. My professor didn't correct that 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:48.560 false assumption that was in this story. We talked about 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:50.600 the story and its contents, but we didn't talk about 0:00:50.640 --> 0:00:53.880 the fact that you can't actually hallucinate. Well, we'll get 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:57.520 into that you can. But but green tea was, at 0:00:57.560 --> 0:01:03.480 the time Victorian Aire assumed to cause people hallucinations or hysteria. 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:06.199 You know, this is this is interesting because I believe 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:10.720 there was this American Life that aired years back, and 0:01:10.760 --> 0:01:13.800 the at least the opening bit was about these little 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:17.120 mistaken ideas that we sometimes have in our head, like 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:20.640 stuff that's it's not important enough that it gets completely 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:24.760 ruled out or corrected. Early on, but you end up 0:01:24.800 --> 0:01:26.959 just holding onto it, like in the In the bit, 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:30.120 there was a there was a particular woman who always 0:01:30.120 --> 0:01:33.640 thought that unicorns were real. She just she didn't really 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:35.600 look into the matter. She just had it in her mind. 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:37.880 This is a real animal. I've totally met people who 0:01:37.880 --> 0:01:40.680 have thought they're real too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, this 0:01:40.760 --> 0:01:43.000 was like that. And I was so embarrassed when I 0:01:43.040 --> 0:01:46.039 realized the truth. But um, I mean, it's not like 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:48.080 I've avoided green tea. In fact, I'm drinking it right 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:52.160 now as we recording this episode. But uh, I've made 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:54.800 sure like I don't drink too much because that's what 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:57.960 I had learned in this class. Well, I mean, moderation 0:01:58.000 --> 0:02:00.440 and all things right, And it doesn't seem like it's 0:02:00.560 --> 0:02:03.520 that unrealistic. There are plenty of substances where if you 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:07.000 drink too much of it, weird or bad things can happen, 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:09.120 you know, not to people who drink alcohol tend to 0:02:09.200 --> 0:02:12.040 know do not drink too much alcohol. If you drink 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:14.560 too much coffee, you may get a bit jit ury 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:17.080 and weird. So the idea that if you drink too 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:21.600 much green tea you might have some level of mild hallucination. 0:02:22.040 --> 0:02:25.160 It's not unrealistic, and it turns out that there's a 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:27.919 little bit a little bit of truth to it. But 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:33.079 the the whole myth just spun completely out of control. Uh, 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:36.680 Like I said, during the Victorian era, but primarily because 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:40.679 of this short horror story called Green Tea by Sheridan 0:02:40.800 --> 0:02:44.720 Lafanu Uh. He was an Irish writer of Gothic mysteries 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:47.959 and ghost stories. Um. This story was first published in 0:02:48.000 --> 0:02:51.639 the United States in five but it was originally published 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:54.880 in England in eighteen seventy two. It was in his 0:02:54.919 --> 0:02:59.119 collection called in a Glass Darkly Uh. And just for context, 0:02:59.480 --> 0:03:02.320 that public cation that was only a year before he died, 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:05.240 so he was kind of at the end of his life. 0:03:04.960 --> 0:03:07.760 I was rereading the story for this episode as well, 0:03:08.080 --> 0:03:12.800 and the story contextually, I think takes place much earlier 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:14.720 than that. I think it's like the beginning part of 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:19.240 the nineteenth century. And this is very much a stuffy 0:03:19.280 --> 0:03:22.080 British ghost story. When you totally not not to not 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:24.240 to hate on that type of ghost story, sometimes that's 0:03:24.280 --> 0:03:26.560 exactly what I'm in the mood for. But this is 0:03:26.840 --> 0:03:30.799 a British intellectual encounter of something kind of weird that 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:34.680 challenges his Britishness, but ultimately his Britishness is enough to 0:03:34.840 --> 0:03:39.480 overcome the anti Britishness. Yeah. Absolutely. This is one of 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:42.680 those rare stories, especially for the time, to where it's 0:03:42.680 --> 0:03:48.120 a horror story, but it chooses science over the supernatural 0:03:48.880 --> 0:03:51.480 for its explanation, which is where the whole great Tea 0:03:51.560 --> 0:03:54.040 things that comes from. Although it just turns out that 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:58.440 the scientific explanation in this story was just as superficial. Yeah. 0:03:58.480 --> 0:04:02.360 I love a good, ultimately phony scientific explanation in an 0:04:02.400 --> 0:04:05.920 old horror story. There was a horror movie years and 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:09.000 years back, I guess the nineteen seventies Horror Express. Did 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:12.480 you ever see wonderful film as Christopher Lee in it? Uh? 0:04:12.560 --> 0:04:17.960 Teddy Sevalis, Kelly Savalis Uh A Siberian train a hammer movie, 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:21.520 I believe it was. And there's a there's like an 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:25.240 undead Neanderthal type creature and it's it's a lot of fun. 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:29.400 But the big scientific moment is when they discussed that 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:32.560 you can like look at the molecules and you can 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:35.040 basically look at an eye under a microscope and see 0:04:35.040 --> 0:04:38.640 the things it saw or something completely ridiculous and totally 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:41.960 blast me out of the movie even in a horror 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:46.280 movie about undead neandertal. Yeah, yeah, no, I think you 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:49.280 know that would be an interesting thing for us to tackle, 0:04:49.440 --> 0:04:53.960 is like scientific misassumptions that we've we've had over the 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:58.520 years from various like sci fi, fantasy and uh, horror 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:03.280 explanations for things. So the story Green Tea goes like this, 0:05:03.400 --> 0:05:06.040 I'm gonna spoil and almost a hundred and fifty year 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:09.560 old story for you here, so brace yourselves. Uh. There's 0:05:09.560 --> 0:05:12.720 this guy named Mr Jennings. He's a clergyman and he 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:16.520 keeps seeing the evil spirit of a monkey. Uh, and 0:05:16.560 --> 0:05:19.880 he turns to a doctor for help. The doctor rejects 0:05:19.920 --> 0:05:22.800 the idea that something supernatural is happening. Oh. This is 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:27.279 Dr Hacilius, by the way, who's a reoccurring character. He is. Yeah, 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:29.960 the whole book, the whole collection of short stories are 0:05:30.040 --> 0:05:32.160 are written from his perspective, I think. And he's kind 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:35.360 of like he's like a proto Sherlock Holmes. But he's 0:05:35.360 --> 0:05:37.520 a doctor and he but he knows everything, and he 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:39.960 like he does that Sherlock Holmes thing where he like, 0:05:40.760 --> 0:05:43.920 uh just like says a bunch of facts about people 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:47.359 without them like telling him anything just to like show 0:05:47.360 --> 0:05:52.320 off how smart he is, how how logical he is. Anyways, Yeah, 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:55.919 so his whole thing is there's nothing supernatural happening here. 0:05:55.960 --> 0:05:59.479 What's going on is you've been drinking green tea for 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:02.480 years every night before you go to bed, Mr Jennings, 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:05.680 and it's in your nervous system, and that's what's making 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:08.839 you see this evil monkey and it eventually drives Jenning 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:11.880 to Jennings to commit suicide. Uh. And the end of 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:14.560 the story is essentially the doctor how do how do 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:16.839 you say his name again? Hascilius has Cilius is how 0:06:16.880 --> 0:06:19.680 I was reading him. Okay, so he, you know, basically 0:06:19.800 --> 0:06:23.200 is like, well there's one for science. Like, it's too 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:26.120 bad that he, you know, killed himself. But he seemed 0:06:26.120 --> 0:06:28.400 like a good man. But that's what happens when you 0:06:28.480 --> 0:06:30.640 drink too much green tea, you know. I have to 0:06:30.680 --> 0:06:32.560 say when I when I went into this story and 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:34.560 I had not I had not read this one previously. 0:06:34.600 --> 0:06:36.880 This one was new to me. I was expecting a 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:41.359 far more racist and xenophobic tale. Yeah, and it it 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:43.880 really doesn't have It really doesn't have much in the 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:47.160 way of xenophobia racism at least on the on the surface, Well, 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:49.960 there isn't a lot of if I remember correctly, they 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:52.800 don't even really reference the sort of Chinese origin of 0:06:52.880 --> 0:06:55.160 tea in it that much, right, right, Yeah, Like I 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:57.359 went back through it and I did the word search. 0:06:57.400 --> 0:06:58.920 It's like, all right, let's see if they're a needs 0:06:58.960 --> 0:07:03.800 specific means of Asia China and not so much it. Uh. Now, 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:05.839 it does raise a couple of questions that I think 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:12.480 can point to certain you know, mild racist store xenophobic ideas, 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:15.680 such as drinking a lot of green tea makes you 0:07:15.720 --> 0:07:20.440 see ghost monkeys? Then does that mean everyone in in 0:07:20.560 --> 0:07:23.440 Asia is walking around seeing ghost monkeys? Are just the 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:26.240 average street in China is just littered with ghost monkey 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:28.600 It's just yeah, it's just a part of everyday life. 0:07:28.640 --> 0:07:31.760 And this one guy just couldn't handle it. The ghost 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:34.960 monkey isn't really that malicious, and in fact, I think 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:36.760 there's even a scene where he like goes to touch 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:39.280 it in his hand, just passes through it. Yeah. I mean, 0:07:39.280 --> 0:07:41.600 maybe it's the equivalent of the little uh, you know, 0:07:41.640 --> 0:07:45.160 the little waving cat toy that you see everything. You 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:47.880 just get used to seeing ghost monkeys everywhere, menacing it. 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:51.840 I think, Um, I think what it speaks to about 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:55.120 the context that this was written and actually is that 0:07:55.760 --> 0:08:00.600 xenophobia wasn't overt right, it was just like the Chinese 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:03.680 and the origin of these products was invisible in English 0:08:03.760 --> 0:08:06.520 society at that time, and so they just didn't talk 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:09.800 about it, didn't think about it, didn't even consider, oh, well, 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:15.320 we have uh problems with green tea here, but why 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:17.480 would we even think about what's happening with the people 0:08:17.520 --> 0:08:20.120 in China drinking it? Right? I think that I think 0:08:20.160 --> 0:08:22.840 that's what my explanation would be for why they're not 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:26.160 in there. But there's there's some really interesting stuff contextually 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:29.720 going on with green tea at the time, and so 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:33.760 we're gonna we're gonna establish that first, and then we're 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:36.600 gonna take a look at what's actually going on with 0:08:36.640 --> 0:08:39.560 green tea with the caveat that Robert and I quickly 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:43.560 found of researching this episode. There is a lot of 0:08:43.640 --> 0:08:46.560 research about green tea out there, like too much for 0:08:46.600 --> 0:08:49.120 anyone human being to read in the lifetime. I think, yeah, 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:53.080 if you follow any particular science news outlets, or if 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:56.160 you do you look at the studies that are coming out, 0:08:56.160 --> 0:09:00.320 green tea is just always hitting. It's like green tea, coffee, 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:02.880 and red wine pretty much. If you want to find 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:05.200 a study on any of those three things that relates 0:09:05.240 --> 0:09:07.840 to any particular part of your anatomy or life or 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:11.360 functionality as a as an organism, it's out there. It 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:13.880 reminds me of this Lewis Black bit that he used 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:16.560 to do about milk, and he would talked right, it's like, yeah, 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:19.320 the study comes out and it says milks good for you, 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:21.040 and then another study comes out and it says milks 0:09:21.040 --> 0:09:22.680 bad for you, and it switches back and forth like 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:24.240 every week, and he's just like, I don't know what 0:09:24.320 --> 0:09:26.640 to do with this. You know, that was a terrible 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:30.880 Lewis but but yeah, basically green tea is kind of 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:34.760 the same, except for the now we're not getting that 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:36.960 many studies that are like, green tea is bad for you. 0:09:37.000 --> 0:09:38.840 We're getting oh, it's so good for you, can do this, 0:09:38.920 --> 0:09:40.520 it can do that, it can do this, right, Yeah, 0:09:40.559 --> 0:09:42.400 it's the level to which it is good for you. 0:09:42.520 --> 0:09:46.679 Yeah yeah. So uh. But what was going on at 0:09:46.679 --> 0:09:49.480 the time that Green Tea was written was basically the 0:09:49.559 --> 0:09:53.280 medical field was really pulling away from the supernatural and 0:09:53.600 --> 0:09:56.320 hyper focusing on science. So that's why you know, we've 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:59.199 talked before about how uh like trace this back a 0:09:59.240 --> 0:10:02.360 couple hundred years for this to John d where the 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:05.400 science field at the time very much incorporated aspects of 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:08.880 the supernatural into it. Now at this period of time, 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:12.840 as Victorian era, uh, they're pulling away from that, really 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:16.800 focusing on science. So they're saying voices and visions that 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:19.720 are seen by people were really they were associated with 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:22.960 a false perception of their senses rather than actual ghosts 0:10:23.040 --> 0:10:26.080 or demons. And some of the ideas that surrounded this 0:10:26.120 --> 0:10:29.040 were connected to human blood and how it circulated from 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:31.880 the heart to the brain. So they're trying to be science, 0:10:32.240 --> 0:10:34.760 but they were just you know, it wasn't very empirical. 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:37.880 The idea was um that like when you hang your 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:39.920 head down and then you quickly raise it up, you know, 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:43.880 you see spots or lights because you're getting a head rush. 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:47.559 And this Victorian kind of science explanation was like, oh, well, 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:50.040 that's that's got to be the explanation for problems like 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:54.840 this green t situation. So yeah, the the story itself 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:58.520 seemed progressive for the time, right because he was like, a, ha, 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:00.880 there's no such thing as a. It's like Scooby Doo 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:02.840 at the end, and it's like there's no ghost, it's 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:07.360 green tea. But the medical logic is not correct at all. 0:11:07.600 --> 0:11:10.160 And here I am almost a hundred and fifty years 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:12.000 later and I totally bought it for a good chunk 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:14.800 of my life. Um So what was going on was 0:11:14.840 --> 0:11:18.720 by the eight seventies there was a shift away from 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:21.920 green tea toward black tea. And the reason why was 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:25.880 black tea was cheaper to produce because it was sourced 0:11:25.880 --> 0:11:29.760 directly from British plantations that were in India and Ceylon, 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:32.319 and therefore consumers thought that it was more likely to 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:34.240 be of high quality because they knew where it was 0:11:34.280 --> 0:11:38.920 coming from, like these we're British managed plantations, right, and 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:44.120 that it was being cut uh with all kinds of 0:11:44.160 --> 0:11:48.040 weird things, various plants, iron filings. Will get to that 0:11:48.080 --> 0:11:51.480 in a minute. Going back to this story, though, we 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:53.559 gotta turn to one of our stuff to blow your 0:11:53.600 --> 0:11:57.800 mind experts that we often summon up. He's been a 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:01.560 former guest on the show A. S. T. Joshi and Uh. 0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:05.440 He wrote in his Unutterable Horror book, he has a 0:12:05.480 --> 0:12:08.160 long section about the story Green Tea and leaf a 0:12:08.200 --> 0:12:12.360 news writings, and he says, quote, there's a certain amount 0:12:12.400 --> 0:12:15.120 of evidence that in a story written only ten years 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:19.520 after the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species, the monkey 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:23.320 represents from a Christian perspective, the rejection or at least 0:12:23.320 --> 0:12:26.280 the potential for the rejection of God and the entire 0:12:26.400 --> 0:12:30.480 Christian worldview. So that maybe puts a little bit into 0:12:30.480 --> 0:12:34.120 perspective about this whole science versus supernatural thing. But then 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:38.000 also I didn't realize this. He points out that Lafoneu 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:44.400 was apparently a follower of this Christian UH like break 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:49.600 off group called sweden borgi Ism I think and UH 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:52.640 named after a guy who from Sweden whose last name 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:55.520 was Swedenborg. Uh. And I didn't have a lot of 0:12:55.520 --> 0:13:00.760 time to dive down that shoot, but apparently, uh, Josh 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:03.880 he sees Green Tea as being like a morality tale 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:10.000 from the standpoint of somebody with that belief system. Interesting, 0:13:10.720 --> 0:13:13.560 you know. I ran across a two thousand nine gender 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:17.520 studies article by this guy, Daniel Lewis of Ball State University, 0:13:17.960 --> 0:13:20.680 and he argued that the story is ultimately about the 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:24.160 need for a closely guarded and bound male body and 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:27.720 identity at the time and read a quick quote from it. 0:13:27.760 --> 0:13:31.240 Here says Hissilius argues that there is a fluid whose 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:36.040 nature is spiritual quote though not immaterial, that circulates through 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:39.319 the brain. It is through the abuse of various substances 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:43.080 quote green tea is one that enables a surface of 0:13:43.160 --> 0:13:47.760 the brain to be quote unduly exposed on which disembodied 0:13:47.800 --> 0:13:52.720 spirits can operate contained within. Hissilius's theories are a warning 0:13:52.800 --> 0:13:56.040 for men against the use of foreign substances like green tea. 0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:59.679 But we can add the exposure to foreign text and 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:03.319 I he is as well that served to unnaturally expose 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:06.600 areas of the body. To be healthy, the male body 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:10.440 must be regulated, controlled and closed off, not leaky like 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:13.480 Jennings body at the end of the story. Huh. That's 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:16.000 an interesting argument, especially in lieu of what I was 0:14:16.040 --> 0:14:19.400 just earlier saying about, like the invisibility of the Chinese 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:22.360 in this story, which is there's no discussion about them 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:25.800 or the origin of this tea. Uh So, that's sort 0:14:25.840 --> 0:14:33.480 of like he's implying that exposure to foreign ideas or 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:37.960 materials is the idea behind this story, right, the sort 0:14:37.960 --> 0:14:40.240 of the menace behind the story but at the same time, 0:14:40.280 --> 0:14:44.720 like it's never explicit, it's just a completely implicit horse story. Yeah, 0:14:44.760 --> 0:14:46.440 it's it's interesting to think on the whole, like the 0:14:46.440 --> 0:14:48.880 threat of the farm, because of course foreign things do 0:14:49.040 --> 0:14:50.880 change you. They open you up to new ideas, and 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:56.080 that's wonderful. I wholly embrace that. But but at the time, 0:14:56.120 --> 0:14:59.000 it's interesting to draw that distinction between green and black tea. 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:01.720 When black tea it's elf is an import it is 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:05.560 a foreign thing that has been acquired by the colonial power, 0:15:05.840 --> 0:15:09.880 as has so much in the in the domain of 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:12.680 the British Empire. Yeah, and from what I was reading, 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:17.120 you know, ultimately this just comes down to making money, uh, 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:20.080 and that like black tea was Uh, you made more 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:22.160 money off of black tea because it was drier and 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:24.520 it was subsequently easier to pack into a ship, so 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:26.880 you could you could pack more of it for travel 0:15:26.920 --> 0:15:31.240 and selling it in Great Britain. And then there was 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:34.560 also the factor of they were saying, well, once we 0:15:34.600 --> 0:15:36.560 get the green tea over there, we want to make 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:39.000 it last a little bit longer, so we'll add some 0:15:39.240 --> 0:15:42.600 I don't know, hazelwood, or we'll add uh the iron 0:15:42.640 --> 0:15:45.640 filings I mentioned earlier into it, and so everybody was 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:49.240 drinking this adulterated green tea, to the point that apparently, 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:53.400 like when when unique sellers would would stand up and say, like, 0:15:53.480 --> 0:15:57.400 we are only selling pure green tea, people wouldn't believe 0:15:57.440 --> 0:15:59.240 it was green tea because they look at it and go, 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:01.840 that's the wrong color. I don't want that. That's not 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:05.520 actually green tea. Interesting. I mean, of course, it's one 0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:08.560 thing we'll touch on getting again here, is that ultimately, 0:16:08.600 --> 0:16:13.320 a T is any hot water that has something added 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:16.520 to it, herbs or and and um, you know, dried 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:20.240 leaves of something. Uh. You have various concoctions that are 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:23.880 technically a T if you want to get get even 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:26.240 more vague with your definition. Just a cup of hot 0:16:26.240 --> 0:16:29.480 water without anything in it can be and has been 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:33.520 referred to as tea in various texts, particularly and in 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:38.320 Chinese text Yeah. I have a friend I was telling 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:40.840 you about before we went on air who's like a 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:43.760 teen nerd. He's like really hardcore about his tea, and 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:46.600 he would argue that's not true, like it has to 0:16:46.640 --> 0:16:50.160 come from the specific plant. It's only tea that like 0:16:50.760 --> 0:16:52.320 stuff like you know how you go to like the 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:54.600 grocery store and they have like Breathe Deep tea or 0:16:54.680 --> 0:16:57.400 stress relief tea or whatever. Well, that doesn't have the 0:16:57.480 --> 0:16:59.880 specific plant in it. It's just a different you know, 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:04.200 mallegation of herbs. Right, And he's like, that's not tea, 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:07.159 Like he's very strict about that. But you're right. In 0:17:07.200 --> 0:17:10.159 other cultures people, you know, tea has a lot of 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:13.040 different meanings. Well, well, let's get into it. What is 0:17:13.359 --> 0:17:19.719 green tea. Let's let's define the potential monkey summoning substance here. Okay, 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:24.600 so all green tea is the unfermented product of the 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:29.679 Chamelia synensious plant. Might be saying that wrong again, my 0:17:29.760 --> 0:17:33.119 latin not the best. But green tea and black tea 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:36.200 are technically made from the same plant, but in a 0:17:36.359 --> 0:17:40.199 less processed green form. There's a higher level of the 0:17:40.200 --> 0:17:43.400 original substances that are in that plant, which is why 0:17:43.520 --> 0:17:46.280 we have these arguments about well, green teas is really 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:48.200 good for you because it has X, Y, and Z 0:17:48.320 --> 0:17:51.560 and what will dive deeper down those chemical roots? Uh? 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:55.560 No pun intendant uh later in the episode. But yeah, 0:17:55.800 --> 0:18:00.159 essentially it's just it comes from this one plant, uh, 0:18:00.280 --> 0:18:03.040 and then it's you know, developed in various ways, Like 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:05.560 I said, black tea's dryer, green tea's weather, or at 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:07.879 least it was in the Victorian or Yeah, it's It's 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:10.960 worth pointing out too that that black tea is actually 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:16.120 red tea in several Asian languages, including Mandarin Chinese. So 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:21.359 in Mandarin, green tea is lucha and red tea is 0:18:21.560 --> 0:18:25.720 hong sha, So essentially that's red tea, and it does 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:29.360 have a reddish appearance to Yeah, definitely, I wonder where 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:31.400 the black came from other than just like the difference 0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:35.480 between the actual loose dried tea or it may I 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:39.560 guess have to do with just the like the the 0:18:39.640 --> 0:18:42.520 fact that many Asian teas, like we're discussing, they seem 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:46.720 to be a weaker concoction. Yeah, and the you know, 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:49.080 the Western is gonna hold of it. They want a stronger, 0:18:49.160 --> 0:18:52.160 blacker concoction. Yea. Even then it's like, do you ever 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:56.439 have teeth? It's just really black. No, especially when you 0:18:56.440 --> 0:18:59.600 think about coffee in relation. But like like I was 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:03.080 saying before we went on air, I drink my tea 0:19:03.240 --> 0:19:06.320 really really better, and I leave like a bag in 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:10.640 basically until I've done drink either drinking from the cup 0:19:10.760 --> 0:19:13.680 or from the cattle. I just I don't mind it. 0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:16.440 But like you said, like you know, sometimes I'll go 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:19.439 to a Chinese restaurant here in the United States and 0:19:19.480 --> 0:19:21.600 they'll serve tea and it's it's fine, but it's like 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:26.000 incredibly weak compared to what I normally drink at home. Yeah. Now, 0:19:26.040 --> 0:19:29.840 of course, China is is the sort of the birthplace 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:33.520 of tea culture. It is. It has a rich history 0:19:33.560 --> 0:19:40.240 of of of tea cultivation and use recreationally, socially, religiously. 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:45.000 In Chinese mythology, tea is a is sometimes attributed to 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:48.800 the second mythical emperor of the twenty eighth century b c. 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:53.760 E Uh. This is shinnng She who actually came up 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:57.480 in our cannabis episode, remember him. So this is the 0:19:57.640 --> 0:20:01.159 guy tea and weed. Yeah, well see, this is the 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:06.439 divine farmer, founder of Chinese herbal medicine. And if you 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:10.160 remember from that past episode, he either he either tasted 0:20:10.240 --> 0:20:13.560 hundreds of herbs or thrashed them with his magical whip 0:20:13.600 --> 0:20:17.520 in order to learn their property. And according to one legend, 0:20:17.520 --> 0:20:20.640 he consumes seventy poisons in a single day in order 0:20:20.680 --> 0:20:24.000 to bring herbal medicine into the world. Now, as far 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:26.520 as Key goes, the story is that he he sat 0:20:26.560 --> 0:20:30.919 beneath a camellia tree and he boiled water for drinking again, 0:20:31.200 --> 0:20:33.679 drinking hot water as as long going to practice in 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:36.200 China for for a number of reasons. But the short 0:20:36.359 --> 0:20:38.640 answer is that it's supposed to be good for your health. 0:20:39.480 --> 0:20:42.520 But then dried leaves fell from the tree into his 0:20:43.000 --> 0:20:46.480 mug or bowl of water, so he smelled it smelled good, 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:50.400 and presumably he'd had sixty nine or fewer poisons that day, 0:20:50.440 --> 0:20:51.960 so he said, what heck, I'll give it a taste 0:20:51.960 --> 0:20:54.640 to what this is like. Uh. He he liked it, 0:20:55.160 --> 0:20:58.760 and the rest is history. There's also a story from 0:20:58.880 --> 0:21:03.879 Chinese Buddhism in which boded Harma, the fifth or sixth 0:21:03.920 --> 0:21:08.560 century Chinese patriarch of China Buddhism. He is supposedly the 0:21:08.600 --> 0:21:11.800 source of the first tea leaves. So, according to the 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:15.280 practice of Chinese Buddhism by Holmes Welch quote, the first 0:21:15.280 --> 0:21:19.120 tea plans said to have grown from voted harms eyelashes, 0:21:19.320 --> 0:21:23.359 which he cut off to keep himself awake during meditation. Interesting, 0:21:24.000 --> 0:21:26.480 now I want to have some eyelash tea I wonder 0:21:26.520 --> 0:21:28.520 if you can get that at Whole Foods. It's very 0:21:28.560 --> 0:21:34.879 pricey to have a Buddhist patriarch. Actually, well, by the 0:21:34.880 --> 0:21:37.360 time it was first introduced in England in the mid 0:21:37.400 --> 0:21:40.679 sixteen hundreds, it was mostly green, like what I was saying, 0:21:41.080 --> 0:21:45.040 and it remained really popular because both doctors and the 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:48.359 Temperance movement were recommending it, because they're saying, hey, this 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:51.240 is an alternative to stuff like beer, you should drink 0:21:51.280 --> 0:21:54.720 green tea instead. Uh. And that's where you know it 0:21:55.000 --> 0:21:58.000 had the surge and popularity at first. But then, like 0:21:58.040 --> 0:22:00.440 I said, because of these sort of machination is behind 0:22:00.440 --> 0:22:03.960 the distribution of green tea. Then the rise of black 0:22:04.000 --> 0:22:06.760 tea came along, and I think that's why today you 0:22:06.800 --> 0:22:09.840 see more black tea. When you think of black, I 0:22:09.840 --> 0:22:13.639 mean black tea is essentially British at this point English 0:22:14.280 --> 0:22:19.200 inevitably a foreign important English breakfast. I meant to say, yeah, yeah, 0:22:19.240 --> 0:22:21.760 that's certainly that's when I think of black tea. That's 0:22:21.920 --> 0:22:23.879 that and Earl Gray are the first thing that popped 0:22:23.880 --> 0:22:25.840 into my head. All right, Well, on that note, we're 0:22:25.840 --> 0:22:29.480 gonna take a quick break. We're gonna steep some more tea, 0:22:29.800 --> 0:22:31.800 maybe you will as well. And when we come back, 0:22:31.960 --> 0:22:35.560 we are going to get into this hallucination issue. Can 0:22:35.680 --> 0:22:44.920 green tea really summon the monkey spirit? Okay, we're back. 0:22:45.520 --> 0:22:50.320 So the reason why this hallucination rumor got started in 0:22:50.359 --> 0:22:54.600