Whats favorite tea and how do you prepare it? (1 Viewer)

[Dave Upton]

Ouch. Any good, unflavored tea should never need sweetener or dairy. Of course, a country full of Brits would probably disagree.

I guess it's how you're raised. I enjoy a good orange pekoe with a touch of skim milk and sweetened ever so slightly.

 

[JohnRice]

It is definitely a matter of preference, and probably even more, habit. I always drink unflavored tea without anything added. Most Brits would probably scoff at the idea of not having sugar and milk in their tea. I always have Chai teas with half and half.

I admit I'm a tea snob.

 

[Dougofthenorth]

Then there is the adding lemon?? - never liked that either, except in cold sweetened iced tea

 

[Northgun]

I've been adding a carmalized sugar while steeping the tea. It has been tasting great! I havent tried adding lemon in anything other than iced tea so far. My wife has been toying with the idea of adding fruit while steeping.

 

[Dougofthenorth]

Last week, Marketplace exposed the teas sold in North America, as having very many & high levels of banned chemicals or teas having well above allowable limits. Testing was done by Health Canada (Canadian FDA) Including a very famous green tea shipped by a well known California merchant - it had 22 chemicals & was at "dangerous" levels
- 99% refused interviews or comments...

Lipton Orange Pekoe had none at all!!

Episode can be viewed online at cbc/marketplace

I threw out all my teas & bought the Lipton - screw it!!

I have enough health issues as it is...

 

[JohnRice]

Doug, for anyone to represent ALL teas except for one sold in North America as being the same is irresponsible. If Lipton is safe, so are a lot of others. There are those of us who take this seriously. Many quality teas sold by honest sellers are imported through Germany, which has extremely high standards and does regular tests.

 

[Northgun]

Testing was done by Health Canada (Canadian FDA) Including a very famous green tea shipped by a well known California merchant - it had 22 chemicals & was at "dangerous" levels

Just out of curiosity, did they test any of the big name tea companies from canada?

 

[Dougofthenorth]

Just out of curiosity, did they test any of the big name tea companies from canada?

Yes I forget which ones - They were mainstream as well, such as Lipton (Canada)

What got me mainly, was that upon testing & finding these disturbing facts, neither HC or FDA
even contacted the makers/distributors of these teas in north America
- no warnings, fines or sanctions issued (typical)
- that's in the show also- it's worth a watch.

I suspect the "contaminations" occur purposely in the unregulated/unmonitored countries of origin...

 

[JohnRice]

I read the actual article as well as the analysis report. I have many things to say about the slant of this article and the rather inaccurate way it was commented on here, but I need more time than I have right now. So, I'll be back later.

Still, a very brief summary is...

They tested 9 grocery store bagged teas. There are literally thousands of tea farms and even more teas of various grades.

The most important fact is that when you buy grocery store, bagged teas, you are actually paying to drink the garbage left over from the tea making process. Cut open an unused tea bag some time. What you find is crumbs and dust. If there were no bagged tea industry to sell to, that would be compost.

Also, this article was clearly seeking what they found. They tested ONLY the lowest possible quality, grocery store bagged tea. If they had taken the trouble to try something better, then the article wouldn't be so salacious.

Like I said, I'll be back with more specific information.

The real theme of this article is, don't drink grocery store bagged teas. This is like auditioning only "White Van" speakers and attributing the results to the entire audio industry,

BTW, Doug, Lipton was NOT void of contaminents. It was a different one. Look at the actual report. Also, the testing was NOT done by Health Canada.

 

[Dougofthenorth]

Doug, for anyone to represent ALL teas except for one sold in North America as being the same is irresponsible. If Lipton is safe, so are a lot of others. There are those of us who take this seriously. Many quality teas sold by honest sellers are imported through Germany, which has extremely high standards and does regular tests.

I'm not representing anything
- just my honest reaction to the teas being contaminated - even with our gov'ts testing them, then doing nothing
It's a matter of trust & that is gone for me & any tea not PROVEN to be safe for my health
- not my job to test teas & the tea industry has lost my trust now

I specified & related it's findings [the show only]

I provided the link - folks can watch & decide for themselves - I repeat, my trust is gone

 

[JohnRice]

I didn't mean YOU were representing, the report was. There is no link that I see. I just did a search and looked at the actual analysis.

...and you are very right to not trust industrial, mass marketed, grocery store bagged teas. I'm not sure it is remotely fair to condemn the entire industry.

 

[Northgun]

Yes I forget which ones - They were mainstream as well, such as Lipton (Canada)

I suspect the "contaminations" occur purposely in the unregulated/unmonitored countries of origin...

I had no idea that Lipton was out of Canada. Thats very interesting, I'll have to check it when I'm done with my homework later tonight. It might be something I can use in my studies in economics.

Being that I study economics, that part screamed out when you made that last statement, lol. I highly doubt the lack of regulations is the reason why the contaminants are in there. Companies don't normally purposely try to poison their clientele. Its not in their best interest to do so. The contamination probably comes from using the same equipment that is used on other things or a lack of a "1st world standards" filtration system. The issue usually stems from a lack of care on the customer's part (the tea importer) and/lack of care by the end user (you and I). Regulations never guarantee anything except for shortages or rising prices. Just because something is illegal doesn't mean its going to stop. All it really creates is a false sense of security, especially with the American FDA. Sorry if a rambled too much lol, I love talking economics. Just got my master's in it last year and my doctoral studies have just started

 

[JohnRice]

Jacob, did you see my post on how bagged teas are sourced? That should make perfect sense, especially from an economics point of view. It quite literally is a by-product. It is only sold because a market has been developed for it.

 

[Northgun]

Jacob, did you see my post on how bagged teas are sourced? That should make perfect sense, especially from an economics point of view. It quite literally is a by-product. It is only sold because a market has been developed for it.

I havent had a chance to look at yet, ill check that out when i do.

 

[JohnRice]

A few little bits of info on what bagged tea really is...


"Fannings are small pieces of tea that are left over after higher grades of tea are gathered to be sold. Traditionally these were treated as the rejects of the manufacturing process in making high quality leaf tea like the orange pekoe. Fannings with extremely small particles are sometimes called dusts. Fannings and dusts are considered the lowest grades of tea"

"...Fannings are also typically used in most tea bags."

 

[Dougofthenorth]

I had no idea that Lipton was out of Canada. Thats very interesting, I'll have to check it when I'm done with my homework later tonight. It might be something I can use in my studies in economics.

Being that I study economics, that part screamed out when you made that last statement, lol. I highly doubt the lack of regulations is the reason why the contaminants are in there. Companies don't normally purposely try to poison their clientele. Its not in their best interest to do so. The contamination probably comes from using the same equipment that is used on other things or a lack of a "1st world standards" filtration system. The issue usually stems from a lack of care on the customer's part (the tea importer) and/lack of care by the end user (you and I). Regulations never guarantee anything except for shortages or rising prices. Just because something is illegal doesn't mean its going to stop. All it really creates is a false sense of security, especially with the American FDA. Sorry if a rambled too much lol, I love talking economics. Just got my master's in it last year and my doctoral studies have just started

Purposeful & knowingly spraying "illegal" pesticides & herbicides on products at source, is far from "lack of care".

Lipton (Canada) HQ in Toronto associated with PepsiCo, Knorr & Unilever
Lipton sells many many products via that consortium
http://www.liptontea.ca/
http://www.pepsico.ca/en/brands/Pepsi_Cola-Brands.html
http://www.unilever.ca/brands/foodbrands/lipton_tea.aspx
http://www.unileverfoodsolutions.ca/products-brands/food-service-brands

RE: " Companies don't normally purposely try to poison their clientele. Its not in their best interest to do so."
They add all sorts of "poisons" to boost their bottom line all the time & purposely skew & misrepresent ingredients on a regular basis.
The model short term gain at all costs prevails if there is any hope it can succeed or the deluded think it will...
Read Joel Bakan's. "The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power"
There is also a docu-film on that - book is better
or Noam Chomsky's writings on world corporate economic policies...

After graduating from a law program, I spent 30 years as a ranking federal officer, actively in charge of (& taught) enforcement of certain domestic & international "economic policies & regulations".
Being under a lifetime non-disclosure agreement, I can say, from my personal experience, that the above statements & authors are factually accurate in their observations & conclusions.

Over the last several years, Canada has been drastically cutting the monitoring & enforcement of environmental, health, animal & food testing & research. Further, it has gutted many protection acts, aimed at protecting these very targets, even extending to humans. They have laid off thousands of scientists & inspection/enforcement employees.
And for shame - look at the tar sands

They even actually believe business self-regulation is viable...

 

[Northgun]

Purposeful & knowingly spraying "illegal" pesticides & herbicides on products at source, is far from "lack of care".

When I refereed to "lack of care" it was in regards to customers, not the company creating the product. The "lack of care" comes in when the customer buys the product even though issues exist. They continue to vote with their money and tell the company that this is ok. If you don't believe a company should harm the environment, why would you buy something from that company? If you believe a product is hazardous to your health, why would you buy it? The lack of care comes in with you and me. Companies give us what we want and unless your in a socialist regime they can't force you to buy and use their products. The other lack of care comes in at the small business level when they buy the product without any research. Good companies do product testing like JohnRice's does and their is no regulation that tells him his company has to do it.

They add all sorts of "poisons" to boost their bottom line all the time & purposely skew & misrepresent ingredients on a regular basis.
The model short term gain at all costs prevails if there is any hope it can succeed or the deluded think it will...

A company who makes all their decisions in the short term (especial those that hurt their customers and company image) will not survive in the long term. You don't need a regulation to put these companies out of business, they put themselves out of business. Only companies with a long term strategy survive over the long term. As far as the poison's are concerned, don't buy the product with the "poison in it". A friend of mind once had a debate where he said everyone would die from poisoning from their drinking water if there was no regulation to tell them to test the water for mercury, but some how humanity made it after all those years of not having that regulation. I know not to drink water straight out of the ground from a non trusted source without being told.
Speaking of water, its an interesting story to look back to find out who lobbied for strict regulations on city water supplies. It was the water companies. Even though the water supply was already clean enough and safe, they lobbied for more strict regulations. Why you say? Well to keep competition from coming in of course. A similar story comes in when looking at coal power plants and scrubbers. A great book to read that is short and goes over both stories with creditable sources for the water and power plant industries along with others is Eco-nomics by Richard Stroup. You also mentioned something about tar in the sands, most likely referring to oil spills? There are quite a few regulations in place already to "prevent" these (safety standards and such), but yet they still happen. I bet you if you took away those regulations companies still wouldn't sink their oil tankers on purpose. You also may want to look up how much oil spills into the ocean naturally and the bacteria that breaks it down, popular mechanics has a great article on this.
I feel bad as the next guy when people are laid off, but when it comes to government jobs, it may be a necessary evil. Governments can't afford to pay to keep inefficient programs and regulations that keep people from doing things that common sense would stop them from doing anyway. I don't need government to tell me not to do drugs or to test drinking water before I sink a well. Governments can't afford to continually print money to pay for this kind of things. When governments print money we all pay and thats on top of all the taxing they already do to us.
On a final note, I too worked under a life-long non-disclosure agreement for the Small Business Development Center. While I was working there I helped consult hundreds of businesses and still consult some today. None of them are trying to poison their customers and I never once had to tell them not to do so and the government never did either.

 

[JohnRice]

I had to remind myself that I am looking at this from the inside and my comments were probably misunderstood. The reason I find this piece of "journalism" poorly done is because it wants to be salacious, while not providing any solutions. Those who work with and know good tea understand that if you buy grocery store tea in fancy packaging, you are probably better off eating the box than drinking what is in it. In my last post I linked to an explanation of what actually comes in grocery store tea bags. It is, no exaggeration, a by-product of tea production. It actually should be considered garbage.

Take an unused tea bag, cut it open and pour it out. Look at it.

By contrast, this is what real tea looks like...

That image should be pretty close to life size on most monitors. Now, to be fair, that tea is a larger leaf than a lot of them, but it also isn't unusual. That particular tea is also organically grown.

Here's the Product Page, for anyone who wants a little more info.

So, why is that article so misleading? I thought about how I could explain that, and the HT world gives me a great comparison. Ask any average person what brand is the best speaker available and the #1 answer is Bose. Even though most HTFers know Bose is not only horrible quality but also a total rip-off, the fact is most regular people are certain they make the best there is. So, imagine an article about the value of HT speakers which only analyzed Bose and concluded the entire industry was a rip-off. I know, that article and the tests done were more than one brand, but as far as tea goes, ALL those brands are Bose.

Tea is very similar. Most North Americans have no idea what good tea is. To them (us) the "L" brand is probably a 5 on a scale of 10, maybe the other "L" brand is a 5 also, and they think the "C.S." brand is an 8 and probably the supposedly "High-End" "T" brand is a 10. In reality, none of those brands goes above a 2 out of 10. They are ALL mass produced, chosen for price and easy availability and nothing else. Then given shiny, dramatic and extremely expensive packaging and marketing. When you buy those brands, you are quite literally spending MORE on the packaging and marketing than the tea. I don't mean a little more. In many cases, the packaging really does cost more than the tea.

If you really want to find a reliably safe tea, you might want to start with ones which have the name of the actual farm in their name. there is something called "Single Estate" teas, which are comparable to fine wines or single malt scotch. Unlike the stuff you normally drink, which is made up of teas from hundreds of farms, these are one harvest from one farm. When the name of that farm is in the name of the tea, that tends to be a good sign of quality and good growing practices.

This Darjeeling is not only single estate, but organically grown and fair trade. It's still even pretty reasonably priced because you aren't paying for CEO salaries, bonuses, Oprah Winfrey, national marketing campaigns and expensive packaging. BTW, you can make about 11 cups of hot tea from 1 oz. of loose leaf tea, so if you bought a 4 oz. bag that would be less than $0.30 a cup. that's a pretty good deal.

 

[Dougofthenorth]

When I refereed to "lack of care" it was in regards to customers, not the company creating the product. The "lack of care" comes in when the customer buys the product even though issues exist. They continue to vote with their money and tell the company that this is ok. If you don't believe a company should harm the environment, why would you buy something from that company? If you believe a product is hazardous to your health, why would you buy it? The lack of care comes in with you and me. Companies give us what we want and unless your in a socialist regime they can't force you to buy and use their products. The other lack of care comes in at the small business level when they buy the product without any research. Good companies do product testing like JohnRice's does and their is no regulation that tells him his company has to do it.

[& etc etc ]

I don't think you understand what I was commenting about - which was simply the amount of deception going on from both manufacturers & government "overseers"
We never find out until something gets exposed or leaked

How can you possibly expect Joe Consumer to know about what is in a given product, when he has no option but to accept what he is told or reads on the label or assumes the legislated authorities are actually doing their jobs...

I know no one that has a lab or can afford to send samples of their food for testing

I was shocked & dismayed to find that poisons (some way above safe levels) were found on tea products by both governments & that the consumer was never alerted

As an aside, I see some car makers are killing people again...

 

[JohnRice]

I was shocked & dismayed to find that poisons (some way above safe levels) were found on tea products by both governments & that the consumer was never alerted

Don't buy those brands. And, no, the Gov't doesn't really do anything about it, which is why those brands will continue the practices they employ. For them, the ONLY thing that matters is the bottom line. I already posted quite a bit about alternatives and ways to avoid that type of product. Did you read it?