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Robot Tea
Infuser - $9.95
Do you like your tea with a dash of retro technology? Check out this cute Robot Tea Infuser from the NeatoShop! The stainless steel tea infuser comes with its own drip tray, so you can keep your table neat and tidy. Its adjustable arms let the infuser fit any size tea cups or mugs.
Link | See more neat Coffee & Tea stuff from our Shop
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If you live for celebrity food and beverage lines, then you’ll love Mental Floss’s list of 10 Celebrity Refreshments.
Personally, I’d like to mix some of The Situation’s Devotion vodka mixed with some of Rush Limbaugh’s Two if by Tea. It might not be the most delicious drink, but the conflicting celebrity endorsements must give it a great kick.
Pleasant Holidays With The Entire Family Tea – $9.95
Are you dreading the holidays? You need the Pleasant Holidays With The Family Tea from the NeatoShop. This Darjeeling with spice tea provides just the right dose of laughter to help soothe frayed nerves.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fun Food & Drinks!
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An Yashi, a professor at Sinchuan University in China, has produced tea which is fertilized with panda droppings. At $80,000 per kilogram, it’ll be the most expensive tea in the world when it reaches the market. Yashi claims that it’s worth the price because of special health benefits:
“Pandas have a very poor digestive system and only absorb about 30 percent of everything they eat. That means their excrement is rich in fibres and nutrients,” he told Chinese website Scol.com.cn.
“It has a mature, nutty taste and a very distinctive aroma while it’s brewing.”
He also believes there are serious health benefits to the drink.
“Just like green tea, bamboo contains an element that can prevent cancer, and enhance green tea’s anti-cancer effects, if it is used as fertilizer for the tea,” the professor said
Link -via Born Rich | Photo: Flickr user Danforth1
This video of unknown origin shows a waiter gathering cups of tea. He needs a serving tray. No, strike that. You and I need a serving tray; this man does not. He stacks and pours fifteen cups of steaming hot tea in his hands without spilling a drop.
Tea Rex Tea Infuser – $9.95
Does work have you feeling about 65 million years old? Maybe it’s time to take a break and make yourself a nice cup of tea with the Tea Rex Tea Infuser from the NeatoShop. Remember, every ferocious beast needs to take a rest now and again. You will be back to your kingly, bone crushing self in no time.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fierce Kitchen Stuff!
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Genius & InsaniTea Tea Bags – $11.95
Are you looking for a way to take the edge off of your crazy day? You need the Genius & InsaniTea Tea Bags from the NeatoShop. Go ahead and talk to your new little imaginary soaking friends. You are not insane. You are just having a good time: Link
Be sure to check out all the genius Food & Drinks available at the NeatoShop.
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Little Red Riding Hood Tea For Two Otogicco Teapot – $49.95
Mother’s Day is on the way. Are you planning a trip over the hill and through the woods to Grandmother’s house? Don’t forget to bring her an adorable present like the Little Red Riding Hood Tea For Two Otogicco Teapot from the NeatoShop. She will just eat it up!
Be sure to check out all the fabulous Glassware & Drinkware from the NeatoShop!
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Austin Kleon, who calls himself “a writer who draws”, leaves wet tea bags on sheets of paper and draws cartoons using the shapes that they make. He explained his creation process in an interview by saying:
“Not-knowing what image will show up is part of the game,” said Kleon. “You get to let your subconscious take over. It’s like a Rorschach inkblot test. You could show the tea stain to 100 different people, and they’d see 100 different images.”
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Get Along With Your Co-Workers Tea – $9.95
Your co-workers don’t drive you crazy. You love them. They are like family. That Get Along With Your Co-Workers Tea in your NeatoShop shopping cart is not for you. You are just buying it for a friend. They aren’t lucky like you. Of course we know you are getting it as a gift. <wink> <wink> <nudge> <nudge>
Yep, and that Be a Better Parent Tea is also a gift.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more Tea-rrific fun.
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Designer Hiroki Takada made a chair that’s shaped like a traditional Japanese tea whisk:
made from bamboo the chair’s design is based around a traditional tea whisk used in japanese tea ceremonies. the base is split into thinner slats which forms the elastic like backrest.
Link via Dude Craft | Photo by the artist
Custer’s Last Sitdown by Michael Renouf – $14.95
Poor George Armstrong Custer. Did you know that just before his Last Stand, he’s got into a little incident that proved to be his Last Sitdown? Can’t a man just relax a bit?
Here’s a new T-shirt design by the pun-meister Michael Renouf over at the NeatoShop: Link
More: T-Shirts by Michael Renouf | Artist-Designed T-shirts | Funny T-shirts
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If you haven't been reading Annals of Improbable Research, you're missing a good thing. You probably know them as the people behind the incredibly popular IgNobel Prize or the Luxuriant Hair Clubs for Scientists (covered ages ago on Neatorama).
But what you probably don't know is that they have a very cool video clip section called Improbable TV. It's a series of 3-minute long bits-and-pieces videos that highlight the weirdest, funniest, and most amazing moments from science papers and research talks.
Take, for example, this one about a book filled with a million random digits "written for and by people who love numbers" (beware the line 2080!)
... the lengthiest spoken oath required in a formal trial in Burma until the middle 19th century:
How to make tea properly and the resume of Edward A. Murphy, Jr. Yes, the Murphy of Murphy's Law:
Links: Improbable Research | Improbable TV | YouTube Channel
In this surreal video, comedian Reese Waters sits down for morning tea with boxer Mike Tyson. They discuss their preferences among teas, opinions on cannolis, and the finer points of wedding etiquette.
via Urlesque
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Information about this place is still sketchy, but there appears to be a tea house in Anhui Province, China, that is only accessible after rappelling up a mountain. You can view amazing pictures of people ascending the mountain at the link.
Link via Radley Balko | Photo: Just Ask Shirley, gxnews
January is National Hot Tea Month, and to celebrate, we at Neatorama invite you to brew a cup of your favorite variety and curl up for some good old fashioned facts about one of the most popular beverages in the world — second to only water. Before we begin though, let’s make one thing clear; herbal teas (including South African red teas) are not real teas because they are not made from the Camellia sinensis a.k.a. the tea plant — sorry chamomile fans.
While there really is no consensus on exactly where the earliest tea plants were grown in Asia and how people got the idea to drink it, there are a number of myths concerning how tea originated and why people started drinking it. One story says that a Buddhist monk named Bodhidharma, the founder of Chan Buddhism, was meditating for nine years, at which point, he fell asleep. The story says he was so upset that he cut off his own eyelids, which took root and grew into the first tea plants. Other versions of the story say that Buddha himself was the one who cut his eye lids off and started the first tea plants.
The story of how tea was first consumed says that Emperor Shennong was drinking a bowl of water when leaves from the plant blew into his water. He tried the concoction and was quite happy with the drink’s flavor. Another story says that Shennong was testing the medicinal properties of different herbs and when he discovered an herb was poisonous, he used tea for an antidote.
While the history of the plants and how they started to be consumed as beverages are the stuff of legends, there are certainly a few well documented facts about the brew’s history. The oldest known still cultivated tea plant grows in the Yunnan Province in China, it is estimated to be over 3,200 years old. Records of China’s tea consumption go back all the way to 10th century BC. At one point, bricks of tea were actually used as currency in the realm, particularly in areas that were very rural and devoid of coin currency.
Chinese Buddhist monks introduced the drink to Japan, where it quickly became a favored drink of royalty. Within no time, seeds were imported into the country and cultivation began. Centuries later, tea ceremonies were introduced by Buddhist monks as well, where they slowly evolved into the highly formal tea ceremonies that Japan is known for today. In the sixteenth century, the tea ceremonies played a big role in feudal diplomacy.
Tea wasn’t introduced into Europe until the 17th century, when it was first brought to Amsterdam. Around this period it was introduced to France and Russia where it was quickly made popular in both countries. It’s introduction into English society was perhaps the place that it had the biggest impact though.
By 1750, tea became the national drink of Britain. Unfortunately, Britain developed a need for Chinese goods, but China largely had no use for English goods. For a while, England sent out silver bullion, but it wasn’t long before they began trading opium (grown in India and still illegal in China) for tea. Thus, tea played a major role in the Opium Wars and the treaty for the war actually required the Chinese ship tea to England in exchange for the drug.
At the same time, the Brits decided that they needed to stop being dependant on the Chinese for their supply of tea, so they hired Scottish botanist Robert Fortune to steal a tea plant from China and then cultivate it in India. The plants fared well in this new environment and now India is one of the biggest producers of the plant.
Image via Okinawa Soba [Flickr]
Most people prefer to make tea from tea bags, but tea purists consider the tea from the bags to be far inferior to loose-leaf tea. Part of the reason is that the small bits of leaves used are often just the waste products left behind from loose-leaf tea. Another problem is that more of the leaf’s surface is in contact with the air, allowing it to lose flavor faster. Some people also claim they can taste the flavor of the bag when they drink it this way. Others claim that tea bags are too small to allow the tea to properly diffuse in the water, which is why Lipton released their line of Pyramid Teas to counteract these problems, but many tea aficionados still don’t like them for the other reasons listed above.
Image by Wikipedia user Andre Karwath.
As I said before, real tea is only made from the Camellia sinensis, which means that red tea and other herbal teas don’t make the cut. Even then though, there are still six different varieties of tea, each created by a different processing method. The tea plant’s leaves wilt and oxidize very quickly after it is picked, and each type of tea is made through drying the leaves at a different point of the leaf’s cycle. White tea is wilted and unoxidized. Green tea is unwilted and unoxidized. Yellow tea is unwilted and unoxidized, but allowed to yellow. Oolong tea is wilted, bruised and then partially oxidized. Black tea is wilted and fully oxidized. Post-fermented tea is created by allowing green tea to ferment, it is largely reserved for medicinal purposes and not casual drinking. There’s a cool visualization of the process here.
While each type of tea naturally has its own distinct flavor, most teas you buy at the store have their own flavoring made by mixing different blends together or by adding other flavors to the mix. Some of the more popular tea flavors include:
Source Image by Wikipedia user lateasquirrel.
Tea contains a number of different antioxidants, one of which, catechins, actually makes up 30% of its weight. This antioxidant can help fight tumors. White and green teas contain the most antioxidants. On the other end of the spectrum, black tea has the most caffeine. Caffeine makes up about 3% of black tea’s dry weight, more than even coffee. The reason coffee gives you more of a buzz when you drink it though is that it’s less diluted than tea. Tea also has fluorine, which prevents dental decay.
Studies have shown that tea can help normalize your blood pressure, lower your stress levels, prevent heart disease, reduce depression and prevent diabetes. It also has germicidal properties that help you prevent sickness(which shows just how terrible my immune system is, given that I drink tea daily and still get sick all the time). A study released last year showed that white tea can boost your metabolism, reduce fat cells and help you lose weight. Another study that came out last year showed that drinking tea daily can reduce your chances of having a stroke by as much as 21%.
The tea plant grows year-round and though it prefers tropical and sub-tropical climates, it has survived as far north as England. Only the top one to two inches of a mature plant are used for tea. These parts of the plant are called flushes and the plant grows a new flush every week or so during growing season. The Chinese believe that a higher elevation makes for better tea plants because the plants grow slower, allowing the buds to become more flavorful.
The evergreen plants are sort of like poinsettias, in that those that aren’t properly cultivated will naturally grow into a tree.
Image by Wikipedia user Dave Oceano.
These visually striking eggs are produced by hard-boiling an egg, cracking the shell, and then steeping the egg in a flavored tea or broth. The batik-like marbling effect is more prominent when teas with high levels of tannin are used; the duration of the second boiling will influence both the color of the marbling and the degree to which the tea or broth flavor penetrates the egg.
Link (and photo credit), via Sharp as Teeth and Stars.
You can buy tea that has been picked from the bush in China by monkeys! The idea is that the rare and delicious strain of wild tea grows on steep hillsides that humans cannot reach. From the product page:
Legend has it that monkeys were first used to collect tea ten centuries ago, because upon seeing it’s master trying to reach some tea growing wild on a mountain face, the monkey climbed up the steep face and collected the tea growing there and brought it down to his master.
Monkey-picked tea is now harvested in only one small village in China. Link -via the Presurfer
You may have heard of the longevity of people who live on Okinawa or Sardinia. These areas of the globe where locals are reknowned for living long are collectively named ‘blue zones.’
Now researcher Dan Buettner and his team have discovered a new blue zone, the tiny Greek island called Icaria located in the North Aegean Sea. 1 in 3 citizens of Icaria live to the age of 90, the highest such concentration in the world. They also have a 20 percent lower rate of cancer, 50 percent lower rate of heart disease, and no dementia.
Our life spans are about 20 percent dictated by our genes, Buettner says. The rest is lifestyle. People in Icaria live in mountain villages that necessitate activity every day. “They have gardens,” he says, for example. “If they go to church, if they go to their friends’ house — it always occasions a small walk. But that ends up burning much more calories than going to a gym for 20 minutes a day.”
“They also have a diet that’s very interesting,” Buettner continues. “It’s very high in olive oil; it’s very high in fruits and vegetables.” It’s also very high in greens; about 150 kinds of veggies grow wild on the island. “These greens have somewhere around 10 times the level of antioxidants in red wine.”
And though they live on an island, Icarians don’t eat much fish. Buettner says pirates pushed the culture up in the highlands and villagers couldn’t depend on the sea as much as might be expected.
Particularly unusual to this new blue zone are the villagers’ drinking habits. Tea drinking, that is. Icarians drink herbal teas every day, morning and night, Buettner says. This seems to be one of their secrets to longer living
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by Geekazoid.
