Green Tea: Nature's Rediscovered Ancient Medicine
According to legend, tea originated in China in 2737 B.C. with Emperor Shen Nung, who observed that those who boiled their water before drinking it were bestowed with good health. One day he was boiling water when a gust of wind blew leaves from a tea tree into his pot. He was very pleased with the drinks aroma and taste, and thought the drink to be sent from heaven. Shortly after tea was invented, it found its way to Japan and spread throughout Asia (2). Tea did not make its way to the United States and Europe until about 1650, when it was brought over by the Dutch. At first, tea was only available to the rich and royalty because it was so expensive. Tea leaves were brought to England by the East India Company in 1669, and in 1721, all tea imported to England came under the monopoly of this company. In the 1800's, the price of tea went down as the supply grew due to the "clipper's" who came to London from China with their cargo in a race to get the best prices (2).
It has been about 5,000 years since tea was discovered, yet it still remains as the second most consumed beverage in the world, with water holding the number one position. Green tea has always been and still is the most popular tea in China and Japan. Today, 90% of green tea comes from China, where they devote over 4 million acres to this plant's cultivation (1). In America, black tea accounts for approximately 80-90% of the tea consumed, with green and oolong tea sharing the remainder of the percentage. But, green tea was the top imported tea in the U. S., above black, up until about 1915. It. was also more popular than black tea in Britain until the eighteenth century. Teas have had a huge impact on America, es...
... middle of paper ...
...erse side effects. Now that we have rediscovered this ancient wonder, we need to grab hold of it and use it to our advantage.
Bibliography
1. http://greentea.com/main.htm
2. http://www.coffee-tea-pots-cups.net/tea/green
3. Fujiki, H. 1996. "Japanese Green Tea as a Cancer Preventative in Humans." Nutrition
Review. Washington D.C.: International Life Sciences Institute-ILSI Press. 54:67-70.
4. Imai, K. 1993. "Cross Sectional Study of Effects of Drinking Green Tea on
Cardiovascular and Liver Disease." BMJ-BR-Med-Int.-Ed. International (ed.) London:
British Medical Association, 310:693-696.
5. Ode, P. The Complete Medicinal Herbal. NY: Dorling Kindersley, 1993.
6. Tijburg, L.B.M. 1997. "Tea Flavanoids and Cardiovascular Disease: A Review." Critical
Reviews of Food, Science, and Nutrition, Boca Raton, Fla.: CRC Press. 37:771-785.
In 1773, the Tea Act placed taxes on tea, threatening the power of the colonies. The colonies, however, fought back by pouring expensive tea into the Boston harbor in an event now known as the Boston Tea Party. The enraged Parliament quickly passed the Intolerable Acts, shutting down the port of Boston and taking control over the colonies.
After importing tea into Britain, the East India Company was required to auction it off to other merchants, some of whom then exported the tea to the American colonies. By law, this was virtually the only tea permitted in the colonies.
In response to the Tea Act of 1773, the colonists had various reactions. The Tea Act was suggested by Lord North in order to save the East India Company from bankruptcy. This act also allowed the East India Company to bypass most of the taxes placed on tea, except for the Townshend Act tea tax. The Tea Act made the East India Company’s tea the cheapest, even with the tax. The colonists were
On a cold December night, a group of townspeople stormed the ships in the Boston harbor and tossed 342 chests of tea into the ocean. This event is known by the Boston tea party, it was a protest of the colonists against the Tea Act which passed by the Parliament on May 10, 1773. This act granted the British East India Company Tea a monopoly on tea sales in the American colonies. Since the tea cargos were the only thing townspeople thrown overboard and they were really careful about the other things on the ship, they are sending a clear message: they are not going to pay the tax on tea. The colonists loved tea, they used it on daily basis. And it is
The central theme in The Scarlet Letter is that manifested sin will ostracize one from society and un-confessed sin will lead to the destruction of the inner spirit. Hawthorne uses the symbol of the scarlet letter to bring out this idea. In the novel, Hester is forced to wear the scarlet letter A (the symbol of her sin) because she committed adultery with the clergyman, Dimmesdale. Because the public's knowledge of her sin, Hester is excluded physically, mentally, and socially from the normal society of the Puritan settlement. She lives on the outskirts of town in a small cottage where she makes her living as a seamstress. Though she is known to be a great sewer amongst the people, Hester is still not able to sew certain items, such as a new bride's veil. Hester also has no interaction with others; instead she is taunted, if not completely ignored, by all that pass her by. Despite the ill treatment of the society, Hester's soul is not corrupted. Instead, she flourishes and improves herself in spite of the burden of wearing the scarlet letter and she repeatedly defies the conventional Puritan thoughts and values by showing what appears to us as strength of character. Her good works, such as helping the less fortunate, strengthen her inner spirit, and eventually partially welcome her back to the society that once shunned her.
Despite the fact that there were no elected members from the colonists in Parliament, they were still taxed. The British East India Company, which was already in debt to the British Crown, sought to export tea directly from their Chinese warehouses to the American colonies to avoid shipping it through Britain. The Tea Act of 1773 was passed, which imposed a duty of £1/80 per pound on directly imported tea. Although this act would have saved colonists money, they still opposed it and refused to purchase the tea. The Boston Tea Party was a direct result of this opposition, and it inspired similar acts of protest throughout the colonies.
The Tea Act was passed on May 10, 1773 by Parliament. The act granted the British East India Company Tea a monopoly on tea sales in the American colonists. The main reason this passed was to get the East India Company out of bankruptcy, which the company was in due to reduced sales of their tea. The act gave the East India Company two benefits. One was to allow it to market its tea directly to America, using its own agents there. This allowing it to bypass the network of auctions, wholesalers, and colonial merchants through which the tea previously had seen sold. The other benefit was to free the company of the duty on tea that it imported to Britain and then reshipped to America.
It seems as if Hawthorne wrote this scene for the purposes of exhibiting the harshness of Puritan society, and to allow the reader some insight into Hester's thoughts. Hawthorne places the focus onto Hester at this moment. The reader observes her before the full effect of the scarlet letter has had a chance to take hold of her. The reader is also able to see the cruel and judgmental behavior of the crowd through their language, such as when they call her a hussy. "This women has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die. Is there not law for it?"
...o geisha take on the capacity of sisters to one another, but they call the women who run the teahouses "mother". Geisha are by no means the only Japanese who live and work in social groups defined by kin terms, but this phenomenon does appear most explicitly in the traditional occupations: carpenters, miners, sumo wrestlers, and gangsters, for example. 13
...ere laden with tea. The disguised colonists proceeded to throw the entire tea cargo of the boats into the harbor (Hansen 166). The reason that this was done was because the colonists were tired of being taxed for items such as tea. Many did no mind being taxed for some things, but not tea. They believed that the money from the taxes was going to help England, and not back to the colonies as they thought that it should. Two years after the Boston Tea Party took place the American Revolution began.
The first way the British instigated the American Revolution was through Parliament's decision to pass the Tea Act of 1773 in order to bring to an end the non-consumption protests that began shortly after the passage of the Stamp Act eight years earlier. Prior to the Stamp Act, many colonists enjoyed the British goods that were provided to them. Because of the general prosperity that the colonists had at this time, British exports allowed people from all classes to partake of the luxuries of the British elite, including tea and silks. As Englishman Alexander Hamilton noted in a conversation he had with William Morrison, a...
Organized figure skating has been around since the 18th century. Since then it has grown and evolved into the Olympic sport we see today. There have been many notable skaters and moves in skating's distinguished history. One of the most interesting and storied is the axel jump.
Indirectly, tea had a devastating social impact on China, as it led to the huge trade of Opium. As much as ten percent of the Chinese population (over forty million) were regular users of opium. China consumed ninety five percent of the world’s Opium supply. This had a devastating social impact on them because majority of the citizens there were addicted to it. Economically, because of the huge amounts of Opium that were imported into China, they could not export enough goods to equalize, causing the outflow of silver from China to Europe. The political impact in China included government attempts to stop the illegal trade of Opium (due to the social use of it) resulted in the blockading of European trading areas there. Britain retaliated, causing the Opium wars, through which, because of the British victory, Britain gained far greater access to the Chinese market and increased trading privileges. This also lead to Chinese workers being taken to the new world. Doing this introduced cheap labor to the new world. The Company’s need for tea in Europe, and the lack of Chinese interest in other British goods, led to the production of Opium in Bengal (by the British). This Opium was then traded with China in return for tea. By 1750, the East India Company established control over India's opium cultivation. The British exported the opium to China, which
It seemed as if tea was a drug for the Europeans because for them it was just so addicting, to the point they would do anything just to get more and more. The only things that were worthy of trading with the Chinese were gingko (type of plant), shark fin, a soft type of wood (used for incense) and silver. As the demand for tea rose, Britain gradually ran out of silver to trade with, and was desperate to find what China wanted. Then, the British resorted to trading in opium. China was very picky about their opium.
When a geisha first starts off she is called a maiko, or an apprentice geisha. This is when she has an onesan or "older sister" to teach her as her mentor. There is also a ceremony where the older and younger "sister" both take three sips of sake from three cups, which bind them together as mentor and apprentice. After the ceremony the younger geisha will usually pick a name that is similar to the one of her sisters.