My own mother introduced me to when I was a little girl growing up at the Jersey Shore Swee-Touch-Nee brand, strong, dark, rich tea bags packed in a bright-red Chinese-style metal box. Mama was a nervous first-generation American who didn t want us kids imitating her morning coffee-and-cigarette habit. Because of her, I ve loved tea rather than coffee since childhood.
Yes, she really did know best: the glories of tea, Vitamin C for colds, fish as "brain food," New York Yankee baseball, the rewards of difficult men, the joy of jewelry. Here and now, in our perilously unhealthy 21st century when nearly everything else seems illegal, immoral, fattening, carcinogenic, frightening, calamitous to the planet or otherwise toxic, finally something s good for you ..
. Not only is tea-drinking beneficial for the heart, numerous studies show it helps strengthen bones as well. While Dutch scientists say regular, long-term consumption of tea may stave off a heart attack or speed recovery from one, Taiwanese researchers say tea improves bone density and prevents fractures.
Consuming two cups a day of black, green or oolong varieties of tea for more than a decade seem to be best for your body. But hold the sugar, PLEASE! In numerous other well-documented studies cited, and lauded, by The Lancet, Health, Prevention, Tufts University Health and Nutrition Letter, as well as the Boston Globe, Science News, the New York Times and the Washington Post, tea s credited with being a potent anti-inflammatory agent, reducing chances of stroke, as well as Lately, tea parlors are springing up everywhere, bringing with them that inventive and amusing treat, Here s hoping tea parlors someday become even more ubiquitous than coffee shops, and they show some intelligence by banning that silly non-biodegradable Styrofoam, instead serving your steaming beverage in those lovely hand-painted Italian porcelain mugs that offer such delightful sipping.
For me, tea always had its own ultra-sophisticated cachet.
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