A Cuppa

Anyone who knows me knows that tea is an important component of my life (with milk and sugar, thank you very much). My mom is English and we have always had tea in our lives. Now I am lucky because my daughter, Amy carries on the tradition and shares this delight with me.

For over twenty years, Brad thought this was a very odd obsession of mine. He never drank any tea at all. One day when he was sick, I felt so bad for him, but I couldn't really do anything to make the illness go away. All I could think of was to offer to make him a cup of tea. He was weak enough that he accepted it. Now he loves it! He gets up every morning and makes two cups for us and brings them back to bed. What a guy!

This is from Nubella.com:

Stressed Out? Try A Cup of Black Tea

Thursday, 05 October 2006
The next time stress gets you down, reach for a cup of black tea for a quick pick-me-up. And it just might even help your heart. Scientists in London say that daily cups of tea may help you recover quicker from everyday stress than non-tea drinkers by lowering the blood level of the stress hormone cortisol.

Dr. Andrew Steptoe, the lead researcher at University College London, said levels of cortisol dropped in men who drank a concoction of black-tea ingredients by 20 percent more than study participants who didn't drink the same tea."We do not know what ingredients of tea were responsible for these effects on stress recovery and relaxation," Steptoe says. "Tea is chemically very complex, with many different ingredients."

Disease-fighting antioxidants
Black tea is loaded with disease-fighting antioxidant catechins, polyphenols, flavonoids and amino acids, which also affect the brain's nurotransmitters. But Steptoe's team couldn't tell which ingredient lowered cortisol levels and allowed the men to rebound quicker from stressful events.

Now that Tetley's Tea is available in most supermarkets in the US, you can have a proper cup anytime. Why don't you make yourself one right now?