A Brief History About Tea

The history about tea is one that is actually exciting and interesting for both those who enjoy tea and those who do not. It gives us great information about the world we live in.

Tea was first discovered in China and has made its way across the globe with great popularity, as it holds the position of second most consumed beverage in the world, behind water and before coffee. As we know, just about every country drinks it so some extent and it has tremendous health benefits.

The history
Legend has it that tea was discovered in China during the year of 2737 BC by the Chinese Emperor at the time. For a few hundred years, people consumed the beverage due to its medicinal abilities. When the Zhou Dynasty reigned, tea was considered to be almost sacred since it was used as a religious offering.

When the Han Dynasty came into power between the years of 202 BC to 220 AD, tea plants had become rather limited and could only be afforded by royalty and the rich, both for health and flavor.

Thanks to the Tang Dynasty, tea went from a drink for the rich to a common drink that everyone could afford and enjoy; the government at the time encouraged planting of tea plants and sharing the crop with everyone. Also, during this time, tea was shared with Japan via Japanese priests in China. The priests drank the tea to remain awake and meditated, thus, it was associated with Zen Buddhism. From this, Buddhists created the Japanese Tea Ceremony. The Japanese enjoyed tea so much that they also started planting tea plants.

During the 1600s, tea arrived in England and was due to imports of the East India Company when Charles II marrying Catherine of Braganza, a Portuguese princess. Tea became a drink of the royals. The aristocrats formed "afternoon tea" so they could enjoy time together for tea. Tea became rather expensive so smuggling began so the poorer residents could afford tea as well.

Years later, East India Company began importing tea to the Americas.

We are certainly glad tea came to North America because otherwise we wouldn't have K-Cup tea and other delicious forms of tea. Enjoy tea? Purchase green tea, black tea, especially some English breakfast tea? Then shop Coffeevines! 

K-Cup Recipe: Perfect Iced Tea for Summer

It's hot outside, for many of us, it is humid as well and that makes it so much worse. How can we stay cool in these days of summer? Sure, you could turn on the air conditioning but what about when you have to go outside or you would rather have the windows open? One of the best things is to cool down with a nice iced beverage.

So to help you out, we researched a fantastically simple yet delicious recipe for an iced tea that is made from K-cup iced tea. As usual, the ingredients in this recipe are easy and are likely things you already have around your kitchen; if you do have to run to the store, they are easy to get and cheap. It's not like you'll have to order off the internet and shipped from Bangladesh.

Here are the ingredients and tools you will need for this recipe:

• A nice tall 12 ounce glass
• Ice ( of course, but had to say it)
• Citrus of some kind (lemon, lime, orange, grapefruit. Lemon or lime will work best, though)
• Sugar or artificial sweetener (if you like it a little sweet)
• Mint leaves (optional but adds a nice taste and look)
• Iced tea K-cup (does not matter what brand or what kind of tea, just use whatever kind is your favorite.)

Now that you have your ingredients and tools ready to go, here is how you make your delicious beverage. 

1. Fill your 12 ounce glass with ice. Put in as much ice as you would like, whether a lot or a little. 
2. Place your glass at your single cup brewer. Brew your K-cup into that 12 ounce glass. 
3. Take whatever kind of citrus fruit you are using and cut it into wedges (like we said, you can use lemon, lime, orange, grapefruit). Squeeze one wedge into the iced tea then place the rest into the glass for a nice look (put in as many as you'd like). 
4. Place the mint into the glass (if you are using any mint). 
5. Enjoy while soaking up some rays. 

Looking for an easy place to buy K-cups? Then shop Coffeevines. 

5 Things You Need to Know About Green Tea

Green Tea is one of the most common forms of tea consumed in the country, perhaps world; of course, this is for good reason. Green tea has good flavor and it has numerous health benefits. There are plenty of health benefits of green tea that we all know about but there are also ones that remain more hidden.

Some of the benefits that have been discovered about green tea have been debated so it's important to do research; however, it is true that many of the proclaimed health benefits of the stuff are indeed true.

1. It helps with weight loss. Green tea has a compound in it that is known to boost a persons's metabolism. When your metabolism is higher, it burns off calories and such from food easier and faster than a slower metabolism. When fewer of those calories and fats make it through your system, you have less weight gain; pair that with exercise and a decent diet and you have weight loss. 
2. It helps with diabetes. When you have diabetes, glucose levels can be hard to manage. Green tea has been been reported to help control glucose levels, this helps slow down the blood sugar from rising after you eat. 
3. It helps with heart disease. It has been studied that green tea has the ability to improve the inner lining of the blood vessels; when the lining of the blood vessels is strong, the vessels withstand the changes in blood pressure much better than when the linings are weak. 
4. It helps with esophageal cancer. Esophageal cancer is getting much more common among people and green tea is able to help with that. Green tea is known for its ability to limit free radicals and cancer cells. 
5. It helps with cholesterol. Green tea has the ability to help reduce the bad cholesterol in your body, this improves the good cholesterol to bad cholesterol ratio. 

So drink up your green tea. Now that it's summer, having some iced green tea is even better. If you are looking for some great stuff, then shop Coffeevines because we have Celestial Green Tea and Bigelow Green Tea. 

What You Should Know About Tea

Tea is a fun and healthy drink. There are many health benefits to it and it is interesting to know a lot about it. We have compiled another list of cool things that you ought to know about tea. Once you read these, you'll want to get some tea for yourself.

1. "Tea", the word, comes from the Chinese word, T'e; this word hails from a Chinese dialect called Amoy. The word is the name of the plant that the tea leaves come from.
2. "Chai" comes from the Mandarin word "Ch'a". 
3. Tea comes from the Camellia sinensis plant. Black tea, green tea, and oolong tea all come from leaves that are pulled from the same tea plants; what makes them different are their processes. Black tea is fermented, oolong is semi fermented, white tea is unfermented, and green tea is unfermented as well. White tea is from the same bush as the others but is picked before the tea buds open. 
4. According to Chinese stories, Emperor Shen Nong was the first man to discover tea in 2737 BC. His servants were purifying water and some leaves from tea bushes fell into the water and created tea. In tea's early days, it was for medicinal use only. 
5. When a Jesuit priest named Jasper visited China from Portugal, he traded with men in the region and was allowed to bring the tea leaves back to Portugal with him. This is believed to be how tea made its way to Europe. 
6. All the way until the mid-1800s, China was the world's biggest producer of tea and their main customer was Great Britain. Great Britain began finding tea from places like India, Africa, and other regions when it grew harder to find tea from China. 
7. United Arab Emirates is the biggest consumer of tea in the world, consuming 14 pounds of tea every year. China is still the world's biggest producer of it. England comes in seventh, the United States is in 69th. 
8. Tea used to not be brewed from tea bags, that did not happen until Thomas Sullivan, an American, sent some to customers in some silk pouches. His customers did not know to take the tea out of the silk. 
9. The world's most expensive tea hails from China, in the mountains of Ya'An, located in the wonderful province of Sichuan. The way it gets to be the world's most expensive tea is due to how it is grown. Field workers fertilize the tea plants with the feces from the pandas since it is so nutritional. How much for a cup? About $200. 

If you are looking for more moderately priced, yet gourmet quality, tea, then shop Coffeevines. Find great brands of single cup tea. 

More Good News About Green Tea!

Tea is one of the biggest and best beverages in the world; some say it is on the A-list of beverages that we have around the world. It's true, when you think about it, it is tied to all these wonderful things that can happen to our bodies; we see it is linked to weight loss, reducing stress and anxiety, controlling the growth of some cancer cells/free radicals. However, the list of things that tea can do does not stop there, now we can add… uh, what was it? Oh, that's right, "memory enhancer". Almost forgot. I should make myself a green tea K cup. 

Studies have been showing that tea, especially green tea, have been linked to enhancing our memories. Researchers from Switzerland did an experiment; in the experiment, they gave participants a drink that had 27.5 grams of green tea extract in it (those participating in the experiment were not privy to the information about what the beverage was). During the consumption of their beverages, the participants' brains were monitored by a fMRI machine as they completed tasks that challenged their short term memories.

Those who had green tea extract in their beverages were doing better than those who did not. They did better on the memory tasks and their brains showed different patterns of activation between their frontal lobe and the parietal lobe (front and back of the brain). Green tea apparently stimulates interaction between these two areas.

Further studies will be done to extend the knowledge on this subject.