The Healthy Diet

• Fight Colds and Flu
• Lower Cholesterol
• Beat Depression
• Banish Fatigue
• Enhance Memory
• Lose Weight
• And More!

An ancient Chinese legend: Once there was a man who knew 100,000 healing properties of herbs. He taught his son 80,000 secrets. On his deathbed, he told his son to visit his grave in five years, and there he would find the other 20,000 secrets. When the son went to his father's grave, he found, growing on the site, the tea shrub....

Teas are the gentle, natural, most beneficial way to absorb the healing properties of herbs--easily and inexpensively. A simple cup of tea not only has the power to soothe and relax but to deliver healing herbal agents to the bloodstream more quickly than capsules, tinctures, or infusions. Feeling tired? Rose hip tea will rev you up and beautify your skin. Need some help with your diet? Ginger tea will provide the boost you need and help aching joints too. Hot or iced, these pure and simple drinks offer delicious ways to stay healthy and revitalize you from the inside out. This unique guide offers:

• An A-Z listing of common ailments followed by the teas best used to treat them
• Instructions on how to create your own medicinal kitchen
• Advice on creating your own tea blends
• Descriptions of the top 100 herbs and their secret healing properties
• And much, much more!

Serious aficionados of green tea will welcome The Green Tea User's Manual from Helen Gustafson, tea buyer for Alice Waters' famous Chez Panisse restaurant. Short though this book may be, it thoroughly covers a subject not well understood in America: the uniqueness of green tea and its distinction from quotidian black tea.

Gustafson has researched the best methods for bringing out green tea's essences, and she recommends a lower water temperature than commonly used for brewing black tea. Moreover, she notes that different green teas require different brewing methods. She also offers advice on teapot selection. Gustafson catalogs some of the best teas available, and she is not so snobbish as to completely shun the oft-despised tea bag. A few thoughtful recipes using tea as a flavoring close out the book. Mark Knoblauch

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Description

With its own aromas and delights, as well as a host of health benefits, including enhancing immune system function and lessening damage from free radicals, green tea continues to grow more popular in American diets. Yet because it is brewed differently, and many varieties of green tea are available, there is more to know about making a good cup of green tea than how to boil water.

The Green Tea User’s Manual leaves no leaf unturned, introducing 16 of the most popular types of green tea, including Dragon Well, Sencha, Jasmine, and the Japanese tea Gen Mai Cha. It describes the three stages of bubbles to look for when boiling water and the various vessels in which to brew, from pots to small covered cups known as guywans. Lovely line drawings, original recipes, anecdotes, lore, and related green tea tips help to make this irresistible little book a perfect gift for anyone with a penchant for tea.

Green Tea: 50 Hot Drinks, Cool Quenchers, and Sweet and Savory Treats

This gorgeous, four-color gift book showcases just why green tea is so popular in American culture today. The opening chapter covers the basic health benefits of drinking green tea, its history, and how to select, store, and brew it. With beautiful color photos throughout, and 50 delicious recipes for hot and cold teas, smoothies and cocktails, and even savory and sweet foods, this is the perfect gift for anyone who enjoys green tea.

About the Author

Mary Lou Heiss is co-owner of Culinary Specialties CooksShopHere, a specialty food store in Northhampton, Massachusetts. She frequently travels to Asia to research and purchase tea for her store, and lectures on Asian/world cuisines, tea, tea gardens, and other aspects of tea culture.

Known as China's Fountain of Youth, green tea has been recognized as a powerful healer in preventing cancer and slowing the aging process. Since its first recorded use 4,000 years ago, people have been drinking green tea for its health-preserving and revitalizing power. Lester Mitscher and Victoria Dolby explore the beverage's health claims in The Green Tea Book.

Using scientific research, The Green Tea Book examines each benefit, from the prevention of cancer and heart disease to simulating mental clarity and reducing cholesterol levels. Polyphenols, naturally occurring compounds found in green tea, supplement the body's antioxidant levels and are the primary mechanism by which green tea prevents the formation of cancer. In addition to the health benefits, Mitscher and Dolby present the history of green tea as well as guidelines for choosing, brewing, and storage.

The Green Tea Book is the complete guide to green tea and will help you understand why it works and how you can use it for both its health-promoting qualities and its great taste. --Gretel Hakanson

More about the Green Tea Book

Mitscher and Dolby's main point is that scientific investigations, particularly during the past 10 to 15 years, support the healthful and medicinal value attributed to green tea. Studies specifically corroborating the book's arguments that green tea can help prevent certain types of:

• cancer,
• heart disease,
• diabetes, and
• dental caries appear among the 17 pages of references, many of them to topflight scientific and medical journals.

That green tea helps mitigate the unpleasant effects of radiation and chemotherapy in the treatment of cancer is another revelation. A general history of tea offers enlivening relief from the large amount of hard information, and tables clarify such things as the amounts of caffeine and theophylline in various drinks (note to the chronically anxious: 125 cups of tea at one sitting constitutes a fatal dosage). William Beatty