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While sipping tea recently with a friend, I was impressed by her sugar dispenser, a little glass bauble which puts out exactly one teaspoon of sugar each time you invert it. I sheepishly admitted that I don't get out much, and I might even have uttered the word "newfangled." Then she told me the piece was actually old. Oops. 

So I shouldn't have been surprised that the tea-focused segment that I caught on TV yesterday was actually a month old. Pop-culture medicine man Dr. Oz was spouting age-old wisdom anyhow: his "Teas to Fight Disease" are nothing new, but perhaps they've reached a new audience in recent months. Of course I'm thrilled by the possibility that Oz's Oprah-fueled fame is providing well-brewed advice to reduce the incidence of diabetes, Alzheimer's, and various cancers with black, green, and white teas, respectively. But I'd like to highlight an aspect of his article which was not at all its focus.  

When we talk about tea as a healthful beverage, we often focus on antioxidants, the benefits of caffeine intake (or, paradoxically, the benefits of reduced caffeine content when compared with coffee), or the beverage's super-soothing effects. But tea was flavored water before flavored water was hip - that is, before you could bottle flavored water and charge people for it. One of the greatest health benefits for tea drinkers is that they're upping their water intake without consuming extra sugar or calories - of course, as long as they're not drowning their tea in cream and sugar. Don't get me wrong: I love cream (or milk) and sugar in my tea, but it's not as necessary as I think it is. And so my favorite feature of the Dr. Oz feature was his little "Flavor Meter" for each tea, showing which teas were sweetest and which were strongest. His list was painfully short, excluding red teas and herbals blends, but maybe I'll create my own someday. For now, I'll be satisfying my sweet tooth with healthy cups of Darjeeling, matcha, and Silver Needle teas.

What are some of your favorite sweet-without-sugar teas? (And when you do need some sweetener, doesn't that old-timey glass dispenser sound positively tea-lightful?)

How is it that you enjoy your night time tea? Do you enjoy a cup of herbal in the quiet after the kids go to bed? Do you sip a cup during the nightly news? I take mine out to the front porch and sip my tea while I drink in the night. Listening to the night sounds of suburbia, Killdeers winging through the dark... Sometimes watching a bat fly in and out of the streetlight catchng insects.

Other times I sit quietly with prayer beads in hand and ask the Universe to help plot my course to contentment, pray for the end of suffering and war... or pray for things closer to home and my heart... or I simply give thanks for the blessings I have.

These are prayer beads I made for a friend fighting breat cancer.

Do you have a night time ritual invovling tea?

Here is my second attempt for a main course from the book Culinary Tea which introduces innovative styles of cooking with tea.

Ingredients: Serves 6

Curry Tea Spice

10 tablespoons loose-leaf Darjeeling tea leaves

1 tablespoon turmeric

1 teaspoon ground ginger

4 teaspoons paprika

4 teaspoons ground coriander

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Cilantro Oil

1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves

2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil leaves

1/3 cup canola oil

Coconut Rice

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 medium onion, chopped

2 cups brown rice

4 cups water

1 cup chopped unsalted roasted cashews

2 cups sweetened shredded coconut

Pinch of fine sea salt

Salmon

6 (6 oz) salmon fillets

6 tablespoons olive oil, divided

3 tablespoons Curry Tea Spice

Black Tea-Coconut Sauce

2 medium onions, sliced

3 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 piece fresh ginger

1/4 cup Curry Tea Spice

1 1/2 tablespoons tomato paste

2 cans coconut milk

1 1/2 cups water

1 tablespoon white vinegar

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

1 dried red chili (such as Thai), seeded, or 1/2 teaspoon ground chili powder

5 tablespoons granulated sugar

5 curry leaves (optional)

2 russet potatoes cut into 1/2 inch cubes

Fine sea salt to taste

1/2 red bell pepper, finely diced

1/2 yellow bell pepper, finely diced

1/2 orange bell pepper, finely diced

1/2 green bell pepper, finely diced

Directions:

Curry Tea Spice: Combine the tea, turmeric, ginger, paprika, coriander, and pepper in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle and grind to a fine powder. Reserve 7 tablespoons for the salmon, and store any leftover in an airtight container in a dark cupboard.

Cilantro Oil: Place the cilantro and basil leaves in a blender or food processor. Pulse to mince, then with machine running pour in the oil, slowly. Continue processing until the mixture forms a fine puree. Use immediately or store, refrigerated, in an airtight container, for up to 3 days.

Coconut Rice: In a large pot, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onion, stir, and cook until translucent, about 5-7 minutes. Add the rice, stir, and heat for 2 minutes, then add the water. Bring to a boil over high heat, stir, and reduce the heat to low. Cover and cook 40 minutes, until rice is almost tender yet still holding its shape well. Stir in cashews, coconut, and salt. Remove from heat, cover and reserve.

Salmon: Rub the fillets on all sides with 3 tablespoons of the oil, then coat with the Curry Tea Spice. In a large wide pan, heat the remaining 3 tablespoons oil over medium-high heat until hot. Add the salmon and quickly sear on both sides; this should take less than a minute per side and the center should stay rare. Transfer the salmon to a plate and set aside.

Black Tea-Coconut Sauce: In the same pan, add additional oil if needed and cook the onions over medium-high heat until translucent, stirring constantly. Add the garlic and ginger and mix well. Add the Curry Tea Spice and cook for 3 more minutes. Add the tomato paste, coconut milk, water, vinegar, lemon juice, chili, sugar, and curry leaves, if using. Increase heat to high and bring to a boil.

Reduce to low-medium heat, cover, and simmer for 25 minutes to meld flavors. The final sauce should be the thickness of heavy cream. Stir occasionally, adding additional water if mixture becomes too thick. When the sauce thickens, add the potatoes and cook until partially cooked and still slightly firm, about 10-12 minutes. Add the salmon and cook for an additional 5-7 minutes, depending on the thickness of the salmon, until the salmon is cooked to your liking and the potatoes are tender when pierced with the tip of a knife. Taste and season with salt as needed.

To assemble, divide the rice among 6 plates. Surround it with a small amount of coconut sauce. Place salmon fillet and potatoes on top of the rice. Drizzle about 1 tablespoon of the cilantro oil over each fillet, then garnish each plate with the mixture of the diced peppers. Serve hot.

Impression:

This multi-step recipe was easy and fun to make, albeit a bit time consuming.  It took me a total of 3 hours from start to finish, maybe with a tiny bit of horse-play.  The Curry Tea Spice coated on the salmon looked very inviting.  So many different flavors in one that you could hardly taste the "fishiness" of salmon which was great.  The Coconut Rice was fantastic.  A great combination of coconut, nuts and rice. The Tea-Coconut Sauce turned out to be orangey-red and reminded me of an Indian richness.  My main contention is that each level was great on its own, but as a combination I did not quite get how all these flavors matched.  Will really liked it, especially since the salmon flavor was completely hidden beneath the garden-variety of seasonings. 

One thing to be cautious of is do NOT have this at nighttime.  There was way too much caffeine on the spice rub that even I couldn't bear, and I'm the one that can drink a turkish coffee before going to bed!  The 10 tablespoons of Darjeeling tea made my heart pound I could almost hear it.  It was also unclear how the cilantro oil topping fit into the picture.  This dish could be best described as an ensemble of 5 well-written scenes in one movie yet you can't tell what the entire movie was about. Too bad because I was eager to try this recipe for its mouth-watering title.

I still have high hopes for the rest of the book Culinary Tea.  Stay tuned for next week's pick!

When the camelia sinensis plant gave birth, she produced a similar yet very distinctive set of quadruplets: green, white, oolong and black. The siblings that shine the most are the oldest and the youngest...green and black. As the youngest, black tea has for many generations been the spoiled, all American favorite especially in southern households as it is welcomed with every meal, iced. Green tea, although it chose to go backpacking around the world and thus developed a finer sense of appreciation, has far lived in the shadow of its youngest sibling at home.  Brewing with jealousy, green tea rebelled with a vengeance, ostentatiously serving its world- reknowned health benefits at the family dinner, thereby securing its birthright. Thriving off of the fierce competition, black tea did some soul searching and discovered that it too, is more than just the little favorite. Below is a scoreboard of health categories to square away the sibling rivalry and to reveal where their respective talents lie.

Healthy Heart. Black tea wins. Black tea contains flavinoids which is a phytonutrient that contains anti-oxidant benefits. The consumption of black tea, with the aid of the flavinoids, can lead to the reduction of stoke and heart disease risk because it reduces the levels of bad cholesterol (LDL) that is associated with helping to cause these two diseases.

Fights Cancer. Green tea wins. Green tea has high levels of EGCG which has been found to inhibit experimental tumor growth in animals.

High in Anti-oxidants. Green tea wins. The main benefit of green tea is that it is loaded with a powerful anti-oxidant called EGCg. When it comes to the process of making black tea, this chemical compound is converted into other compounds, leaving researchers to believe that anti-oxidants are not as prevalent in black tea as they are in green tea.

Weightloss. Green tea wins. Green tea contains high levels of catechins which are anti-oxidants and polyphenols that are easily oxidized.  Catechins are more abundant in green tea than any other due to the least amount of fermentation that it undergoes.  One study suggests that the high levels of polyphenols in green tea activate the enzyme that is responsible for dissolving excess triglyceride, thereby burning fat.

Stress. Black tea wins. According to a study at the University College of London, black tea has an effect on the stress hormone levels of the body.

Less Calories. Draw. Neither black nor green contain any calories without any additives.

More Caffeine. Hard to say. Some researchers state that the least fermented would contain more caffeine. However, others say that caffeine does not evaporate and its levels remains constant even though black tea is fermented the most. Lets just say if their birthdays came around, they would probably get the same present.