Wild And Interesting Facts About Tea

So tea is one of the most consumed beverages in the world, it ranks right up there with coffee and water. As online coffee retailers, we knew that you would love to know about the great and interesting facts about tea. There is a good chance that many of us on Earth have had at least one cup of tea in our lifetimes, so why not expand our knowledge about it?

1) In order for something to be considered "tea", it has to have leaves from the tea plant, or scientifically known as Camellia sinensis. If it just a bunch of herbs and leaves of plants that are not the Camellia sinensis, it is actually called Tisanes. Typically, when you find something marked "tea" in the grocery store, you are actually drinking a tisane.

2) Decaffeinating tea on your own is possible. When you want a cup of tea for its warmth and wonderful flavor and aroma, it can
be hard to find tea that is non-caffeinated when all you have around you is the perky stuff! So how do you get the tea without the caffeine when you have no seemingly possible way to get it? Decaffeinate it yourself. Rumor has it that all you have to do is brew the tea for 30 seconds or brew it twice (after throwing away the tea from the first brew). In order to do decaffeinate it yourself, you have to brew the tea for about 10 minutes (this removes about 90 percent of the caffeine). Then brew it again.

3) Soy lecithin actually isn't bad for you. Soy lecithin has been found in many kinds of teas and originally, it was thought that it was bad for you. However, researchers found out that when in moderation, it can be good for things like ulcerative colitis.

4) While tea can have caffeine and that stuff can wake you up, it has been found that the intense effects of the stuff is diminished when consumed via tea instead of coffee. This is because tea has something called L-Theanine. L-theanine has beneficial effects on the brain like being able to induce meditative states; it can help you relax but doesn't make you feel drowsy. It has even been found to help with stress and anxiety.

5) In the United States, we often drink something called a chai tea latte; tea mixed with lots of spices and milk. However, in many Asian countries, this drink will get you some awkward looks because chai  just means "tea" in many of those languages. So a chai tea would be redundant. "Can I have a tea tea?"

6) In some countries, like Burma, they drink tea but they also eat it. Yep, they eat it. They pickle the leaves and call it lephet. The tea leaves are softened, cooled, rolled, and aged.

7) In some countries, mostly in ancient times, they would use tea for something besides eating and drinking; they would use it to practice witchcraft; a ritual was performed that was called Tasseomancy.

Hopefully now you feel smarter about the tea you drink and can whip out some of these awesomely cool facts at tea parties. If you have a love for tea but not the time to shop for it in stores, then visit Coffeevines and purchase your tea online! Even though we are online national coffee distributors, we also have a vast selection of teas and hot chocolate.

Coffee Roasts & Their Differences

If you are into coffee, then you should know that there are different coffee roasts; not all coffee beans are roasted the same way. If you are new to coffee and didn't even know roasting the beans was a thing, well, we'll help you with that.

Roasting a process that is done to the beans that heats the beans from the weird looking raw greenish bean into the brown, fragrant, magical wonder that we often see in coffee shops and stores. When the beans are raw, they can be kept in that way for quite a long time; once roasted, use them or lose them.

Roasting coffee beans is not something considered for those new to coffee; roasting is considered an art form and takes years to master. It has been said that roasting coffee beans takes a quick mind and quick hands.

So why roast? It makes the bean have that delicious flavor and smell. If you were to eat or smell a raw bean, it would probably remind you of grass. Imagine drinking a grassy liquid (not like the grass shots from Jamba) instead of the coffee we know and love today.

So what are the different kinds of coffee roasts?

• Light roasts, or mild roasts. These beans are lighter in color, like a light brown. The mild roast is used for softer, or milder, coffee blends. Common names for mild roasts include: light city, cinnamon, half city, and New England. 
• Medium roasts. This roast is obviously a medium brown color, like a milk chocolate color. These beans have a heartier flavor and aroma. The medium roast is perhaps the most popular in the United States. Some common names for this roast include city, American, and breakfast. 
• Medium-dark roast. This kind is a bit darker than medium and has a bit more flavor and aroma while not being as intense as dark roast. It has a more bittersweet taste. A common name for this roast is full city. 
• Dark roasts. These beans have the most shine to them due to the longer roasting process. Due to the longer process, they have a more bitter flavor than the other kinds of roasts; however, coffee that is dark roast tends to have less acidity than the others as well. You can find variety in the dark roast arena; beans range from slightly dark to charred. Some common names for dark include high, continental, New Orleans, European, espresso, Viennese, Italian, and French. 

You can find light, medium, and dark roasts on our site from Coffeevines. As an online coffee retailer, we enjoy bringing the love of coffee to anyone in the country. 

2 Cups of Coffee a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

We have heard things going back and forth about whether or not coffee is actually good for you or not; however, as the studies about coffee have progressed, the results of the studies are actually finding more benefits to moderate coffee drinking than health hazards. Recent studies have shown that consuming two cups of coffee a day have a good impact on your overall health; this is particularly helpful when you consider K cup coffee and brewing just a single cup takes seconds.

In that study from 2012 (New England Journal of Medicine), it used 400,000 people for the study and found that those who drank 2 cups a day had their risk of dying reduced by 10 percent; moderate coffee drinking can help you live longer. This was the largest study ever done on the issue; the people in the study were men and women ages 50-71 and taken from around the country. . It is safe to say that the results turn coffee from a guilty pleasure to a part of your healthy diet. The key factor is to do it in moderation, however, as the say, everything in moderation; even water should be consumed in moderation, believe it or not.

In the study, 42,000 of the people did not drink any coffee while the rest were varying coffee drinkers; most of them drank the moderate amount of 2 cups a day while only 15,000 of the study's participants drank 6 or more cups a day. It was found that the 10 percent reduction to the risk of death was for men and women, it was as much as 13 percent. Even the participants who did see some results, they saw a 6 percent reduction for the gentlemen and a 5 percent reduction for the ladies. It was found that caffeine did not play a large role in the results.

So how does coffee help you reduce your chance of death? It was found to help with respiratory disease, diabetes, stroke, liver, and the brain. Both single cup coffee and traditional drip methods give the same results.

Now, you should remember that coffee won't make you live forever or is guaranteed to help you live longer, but this study, as well as many others, are showing that coffee has the ability to be helpful instead of harmful, like we'd all previously thought.

If you want the chances of coffee being helpful to increase, try to cut back on the cream & sugar.

Coffee Trends - The Third Wave

There is a trend emerging and gaining popularity; it is called the "third wave of coffee". This trend is rather common and popular in the United States and now it has made its way to Japan.

So what is this trend? It is the practice of choosing coffee based on where the coffee was grown (not just the country but also the particular farm it was grown on). Depending on the country (and farm) the coffee was grown, the coffee drinkers focus on different ways of brewing or even roasting the coffee; there is the traditional method, the single cup coffee method, hand drip method, etc.

So why is it called the "third wave"? Well, the first wave of coffee exploration came in the 60s and 70s when tons and tons of coffee was being consumed seemingly 24/7. The second wave came in the era known as "Seattle coffee" which occurred in the 80s & 90s when Starbucks and other chains, mostly from Seattle like the name implies, were coming to the market and experienced massive success.

This past Fall, coffee drinkers in Japan saw an event happen that allowed them to enjoy Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee for the first time; with this kind of coff
ee, brewers make the coffee via traditional drip method. What is this method (for those who don't know)? It is allowing hot water to make its way through the ground beans and through a filter.

What sparked this trend? Well, coffee connoisseurs realized that depending on where the coffee is from, it will taste differently, much like wine, due to the climate and the soil it grew in that year. So what did the event crowd think of the Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee? They thought the coffee had a good combination of flavor with hints of acidic taste; a generic description that describes quite a bit of coffee kinds.

This trend has sparked a new trend for coffee houses as now they are starting to label where the coffee was grown.

As online coffee retailers and an national online coffee distributor, we love that there are new trends in coffee, they keep it exciting. This particular trend is interesting and brings a certain level on intricacy to coffee consumption that wasn't there before.