Friday, September 23, 2011

TEA AND HONEY, WHAT AN EXCELLENT HEALTHY DRINK

Tea and honey, my favourite beverage, have you tried putting the health benefits of honey into your cup of tea? Let?s discover the benefits of drinking tea together. What a great way to start and end the day with a few more cups in-between. This beverage is both warming and cooling depending on the weather and one we can all enjoy and savour at any time of the day.

Most people know that the majority of tea arrives in our stores from India or China but it appears to be the British who love their cups of tea the most.


It a very English type tradition although nobody can really say for sure who first thought of tea and honey as such a great combination but the English certainly have a passion for the benefits of drinking tea .


Does Anyone Famous Enjoy


Tea and Honey?


Lady Gaga uses ginger tea, she swears this is an excellent choice for keeping her singing voice in tip top condition. Add some honey to Ginger Tea Benefits and you too will help to keep your throat healthy although it won't promise to make you a good singer!

Janice Dickinson is known for her bouncy personality and she swears a cup of chamomile tea calms her down. Drink this with honey when you're feeling stressed and just before bed to help you acheive floating off to into a dreamy, calm sleep.

Eva Longaria loves mint tea which she adds Lemon and Honey to. This is an excellent choice for settling tummy upsets and also helps with IBS SymptomsIBS Symptoms.

Victoria Beckham is a huge fan of the strange sounding Pu-erh tea. Its not certain whether she adds honey to this but it has an amazing ability to boost your metabolism, it is an excellent source of calcium and packed full of B vitamins and folic acid. This could be one of the reasons she is so fertile. It also contains no calories at all!

If you are looking for the best form of antioxidants that can be found in tea, look no further than Matcha Tea. This contains more than one hundred the times of antioxidants than normal green tea. This tea is made from a special source of ground Japanese green tea leaves and can be drunk with water or milk. Add a spoonful of honey and feel yourself become fitter by the day.

There are so many legends concerning how drinking the beverage tea first originated, some of these are quite quaint and perhaps deserve a mention.

Pop the kettle on and make yourself a nice cup of tea and honey, settle down and I?ll tell you something about them. Maybe you would like a ginger tea recipe for a nice change.

There was once an Indian prince called Bodhidharma. On converting to Buddhism in the sixth century he travelled to China to spread the word. Not one for sleeping for long periods he thought that chewing tea leaves which he picked straight from the shrub would keep him awake. Other legends about him state he was so disgusted with himself for falling asleep he cut his eye lids off and threw them to the ground. They sprouted the very first tea bush! He should really have saved himself the trouble and pain because the Mongol leaders of China during the years of 1280 ? 1386 decided that tea drinking was far too decadent and people tended to stop drinking it!

Interestingly China is the largest honey producing country so maybe this is where tea and honey together were first bonded! Whoever decided tea and honey together were such a good idea had probably worked out honey nutrition of honey as a sweetener in preference to sugar or sugar substitutes. It took a Portuguese princess to make tea fashionable in Britain. Her name was Catharine of Braganza whom Charles 11 fell in love with and married.

Such was her passion for tea and because she was considered to be a bit of a trend-setter in her day the wealthy decided to follow her passion! Her passion for the benefits of tea quickly spread amongst those fortunate enough to frequent Coffee Shops who had also discovered the health benefits of tea as the New Fashionable Drink of the day.

Catharine was totally unaware of how her passion would have such an impact on the Western World as the East India Tea Company quickly cottoned on and started to import tea in large quantities.

How to Make the Perfect Cup of Tea and Honey

Boiling water, this is an absolute must Fresh tea leaves or tea bags, buy the best you can because you want a decent cup. A nice china teapot A nice bone china cup and saucer Your favourite kind of honey

METHOD:

Boil a kettle using fresh water Pour this into your teapot to warm it up Re-fill your kettle with fresh water and boil this Empty the teapot Pop your tea or tea bags into the warmed pot Pour the freshly boiled water onto these Stir with a spoon and leave for a couple of minutes Pour into your cup and stir in enough honey to taste??..delicious, then sip and enjoy.What Are the Health Benefits of Tea?

Honey has so many health benefits and over recent years much research has been conducted into the health benefits of tea. Good quality teas contain zinc and essential minerals and important vitamins such as B and E.
Green tea in particular has now been proved to contain epigallocatechin gallate, an antioxidant which has proved to fight cancer cells especially in Leukaemia, lung, prostrate and breast cancer. This research and evidence was conducted at the famous Mayo Clinic in 2004.

Honey is a great antioxidant so it is little wonder tea and honey have so many health giving properties.

Other health benefits of tea and health benefits of honey include warding off Alzheimer's disease.


An interesting fact is that this disease very rarely affects beekeepers who are probably avid drinkers of tea and honey. Newcastle University's Medicinal Plant Research Centre carried out

this research in 2004.

The National Academy of Sciences in 2003 conducted research into the health benefits of tea?s influence on building a health immune system.

This is something that can also be achieved with the health benefits of honey.
Perhaps you would like to read my Immune system facts article. All very good and sensible reasons for drinking tea and honey.

There are actually around 1,500 different types of tea it is thought, with varying flavours and colors. Much like our choices for honey, there are some amazing kinds of honey and most of them make a tasty twosome as ?Tea and Honey?.

What Other Types of Tea Can You Have with Your Tea and Honey?

Artisan teas: which are full-leaf white, green, and black teas which are quaintly referred to as flowering teas, peonies, or anemones.

Assam: This is a variety of black teas originating from the largest tea producing country India.
Blends: These are just types of tea blended together.
Ceylon: Mostly black teas from Sri Lanka.
Darjeeling: Amazing floral black teas, very pale in color but great tasting.
Earl Grey: A black tea perfumed with citrus oil from the Bergamot orange.
English breakfast tea: A lively black tea, great with honey
Fair trade teas: A tea that is grown on a farm that is part of a Fair Trade working cooperative.
Flavoured tea: Tea that has been scented and flavoured with which raspberries cinnamon and orange rind, just to name a few.
Formosa or Formosa oolong: This is considered to be the champagne of tea.
Gunpowder: A style of green tea from China which have been rolled into pellets and dried, they open up when steeped in boiling water.
Jasmine: A black tea scented and flavoured with jasmine flowers. What a really nice way to have tea and honey.
Keemun: One of China?s best-known premium teas.
Kenya: A fine black tea produced in Africa.
Lap sang Souchong: A black tea produced in China known for its smoky aroma and taste.
Matcha: A powdered green tea used in the Japanese tea ceremony.
Oolong tea: A tea produced in China and Taiwan. Brews an amber infusion.
Orange pekoe: Indicating a larger grade of whole black tealeaf.
Organic teas: A tea that is certified by an international agency as having been grown free of chemical pesticides, fertilizers, or herbicides with a label to verify and is considered by many as the best tea and honey.
Pekoe: Indicates a smaller grade of whole black tealeaf.
Rooibos: A caffeine-free herb produced in South Africa that steeps to a rich reddish infusion. A great tea and honey drink for those who don?t like caffeine.
Sencha: This green tea variety is produced in Japan.
White tea: A tea produced mostly in China. This brews into a pale greenish, almost clear infusion. It is the rarest of teas which can only be picked for a few weeks in a year.

How Often Should We Drink Tea and Honey?

Tea and honey should ideally be drunk at least three times a day to receive all the benefits. It is a great pick me up when you are feeling tired and is often used to treat people who are suffering with shock! ?Give them a cup of sweet tea? is often heard.

Whichever type of tea is your choice be sure to leave out the milk and sugar and sugar substitutes and drink tea and honey instead.

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