Tea Myths

Video Transcript

"In this segment, we'll talk a little bit about the modern mythology of tea. Tea of course is steeped in myth. Throughout history the Chinese ascribe all kinds of myths and legends to tea. Everything from the dragons that were involved in many of the stories about tea. However, even today some myths persist that really aren't true. The first one I'd like to talk about is that green tea doesn't have caffeine. Many people come in and think, 'I like to drink green tea because it has no caffeine'. Of course, all tea comes from the exact same plant, so all tea has caffeine. And while the actual amount in the cup may vary, it all has caffeine. The second thing I'd like to talk about is a term we've all heard of if we've ever bought a box of tea at the grocery store and that's orange pekoe. Orange pekoe refers neither to the color nor the flavor of the tea. When Sir Thomas Lipton brought tea back to the Netherlands, he wanted to come up with a name that he thought would be good from a marketing angle. So he assigned the name orange to the tea, not because of the color or the flavor, but because that was the name of the royal house at the time, the House of Orange. Pekoe was a name that he basically made up, to sound exotic. So he made up a word, called pekoe that he thought people would find very mystical sounding. And that's where the word orange pekoe comes from. Who drinks the most tea? Many people think it's some place in Asia. Others people might bet good money on a bar that it would be the English. However, you would both be wrong in that case. The Irish drink more tea than anyone on the planet, averaging about 7. 2 pounds per person per year."