The Perfect Cup of Green Tea

Okay, enough politics for awhile. Back to the tea.

According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which is a weird name for a paper (I'm gonna intelligence you), up to 80 percent of the healthy antioxidants in green tea lose their power in stored tea or in your intestine and don't get absorbed at all. Sadness! How to combat this? Brew fresh tea and add lemon. According to "researchers" (I would feel more intelligenced, Seattle P-I, if you told me which researchers) a 50-50 citrus/tea mix will best preserve the antioxidants in green tea. Lemon works best, followed by orange. Yum!

Obama Invited to Take Tea with Queen

According to the Telegraph, the Queen has invited President Obama to take tea with her when he's in town for the G20 summit in April. Some in the British press (notably, the Telegraph reporter Iain Martin) are apparently annoyed at Obama's eagerness to accept her invitation after he gave Gordon Brown what they judge lame gifts including a DVD box set and some toy helicopters. Whatever, Iain. I'll take those DVDs if you don't want them. It would be totally cool to have tea with the Queen, too, but I think I'd be so nervous I'd drop my priceless teacup. I bet they'd have really good snacks, too.

Oregon Church Fights to Drink Hallucinogenic Tea

A Brazilian Christian congregation in Oregon is fighting for its right to drink hoasca, a tea with hallucinogenic properties made from the bark of tropical vines. According to ABC News, "Believers say the tea allows them to have visions and enables talks with God and communications with spirits."

The Justice Department classifies hoasca as a banned substance, but a federal judge is considering whether the church should be allowed to use the tea in its services through the religious freedom restoration act. For example, some Native American tribes are allowed to use peyote (a cactus with similar properties) as part of their ceremonies.

I'm not sure how I feel about hallucinogenic tea. What if these believers saw a vision of God telling them to kill somebody? Religious folks are crazy enough without visions. I do like the possibilities for a marketing campaign, though: "Drink tea. See God."

Right-Wingers Co-op Tea

Last Friday, conservatives across the country held "tea parties" to protest Obama's stimulus package. These "parties" were inspired by a rant by Rick Santelli, an analyst on CNBC. It's kind of unclear how tea was actually involved...looking at pictures I don't see much tea. Maybe some people put some tea bags in a fountain?

Anyway, it seems to me a very minimal tea connection, and a poor excuse to tie tea to conservatism! I don't have an incredibly strong view on the stimulus package myself, but I am sure that tax cuts are not going to save our economy. Personally, I think we should limit all salaries to one million a year. You can't POSSIBLY need more than that, let's be serious.