RECIPE for Green Tea Chocolate Cake

This is a Japanese Dessert,which uses Matcha Tea

Ingredients
3 small eggs
One and two thirds cups all-purpose flour
Two thirds cups sugar
one third cup butter
one teaspoon matcha green tea powder
1 teadspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons chocolate chips
Method
Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add beaten eggs alternately with sifted flour,matcha and baking powder
Gently fold in chocolate chips
Transfer mixture to a greased 8 inch square pan. Bake at 350F for approx. 25-30 minutes.
Cool. Cut into squares.

Green Tea Green Tea it does a body good

There is a great deal of interest in the health properties of green tea. Here are the grades of green tea to buy and try.

GUNPOWDER; Gunpowder is produced from the first crop. The young leaves are selected and rolled into pellets the size of a pinhead. This makes them resemble gunpowder.

MATCHA: Matcha is a green tea that has been reduced to a powder. The leaves are dried, steamed and cut into pieces. They are then dried again and ground into a powder. This process gives the tea a strong, bitter taste. The Japanese use matcha green tea in their Japanese tea ceremony (Chanoyu). This green tea should be used sparingly.

CHUN-MEE: Chun-Mee is an excellent green tea made of very tiny leaes, which are twisted length-ways.

NATURAL LEAF: Comes from China and Japan. As the name implies the leaf is left in its natural state, which is whole. This green tea is very mild.

Tea Claims

Lipton Tea is healthy was rejected by the European Food Standards Authority (EFSA) for making unsubstantiated claims on their packaging. Unilever asserted that Lipton Tea could help increase alertness, but the EFSA found no sufficient proof that black tea could help 'focus' attention.
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'Friends don't let friends drink Liptons. I received a magnet with this quote today.

Do yo like your tea in bags?

The popularity of teabags has increased tremendously during the last decade, as the quality of teabag tea has improved greatly during this period of time. People use teabags because they generally find them more convenient. However, it is still worth that little extra time to use loose tea and prepare tea using a teapot, the resulting tea is definitely superior.

Pairing tea and food

Pairing tea and food/pastries is a matter of taste. Generally tea should complement and marry with the food being served. For example: Earl Gray Tea (a blended tea, flavored with oil of bergamot) is wonderful when paired with chocolate.So most pastries that include chocolate go well with this particular tea.

Green tea can be somewhat bitter and a sweet delicate sugar cookie would be a suggestion.

If you are serving a fruit loaf, then a black tea with orange and spicy flavors would be great.

Darjeeling tea (known as the champagne of teas) should be sipped whilst eating a dainty light cookie.

Black tea or Green Tea which is healthier?

Much tea research has focused on Green Tea. Green tea is loaded with powerful anti-oxidants. Recent studies, however, indicate that compounds contained in black tea, namely, theaflavins and thearubigens do provide health benefits originally attributed to green tea alone.

My advice: Drink both.

Can hot tea really cool you?

The amount of heat lost by evaporation and sweating never exceeds the amount of heat gained by the hot tea you drink. The extra heat makes the blood vessels near the skin dilate to help cool the blood faster. The nerves on the skin senses this and the body feels flushed and warm.

The answer is that hot tea will make the body sweat more,thus increasing cooling. However,the amount of extra cooling will not be enough to counteract the heating up from the tea.

So if someone tells you to drink hot tea in the summer, don't listen to them. Just pour yourself a glass of iced tea, iced water or cool lemonade.

How to Drink Tea, a potted history

SAMUEL PEPYS the diarist, of the reign of Charles 2nd wrote in 1660 of having drunk "tea (A China drinke) of which I have never drunk before. He does ot say whether he liked it or not.

At that time there was some confusion as to how tea should be prepared, it could be too strong or too weak. Should it be sweetened or not?

It was Dr. Samuel Johnson who became the greatest tea drinker of the 18th century. He established the way the British drank tea. Dr. Johnson, no doubt, drank many cups of tea whilst he single-handed created a huge English dictionary in order to give himself stamina to complete his diary. His teapot was very large. He took his tea strong, with the bite of tannin tempered by a little milk, adding sugar in small lumps.

Once when he was visiting a very distinguished lady he drank 32 cups of tea. "Dr. Johnson, you drink too much tea" she said. Dr. Johnson replied "Madam you are insolent."

Clearly the very British Institution of the tea party or what the French call le five o'clock had been established.

This is still true today.