You won't find many people these days who are not aware that tea is healthy. It seems a new report touting the health benefits of drinking tea is released on a daily basis. As a result, many people would like to drink more tea, but they have a hard time reaching the recommended daily amount, which is usually said to be at least four cups and often up to ten. How can we consume that much tea on a daily basis?
One solution is to drink nothing but tea all day long. That seems like a lot of work when you consider the effort required to brew a cup of tea and the small size of your average cup, but what about increasing the size of the cup itself?
Personally, I found the answer when working in China. I already enjoyed drinking tea, but did so only at home, having a cup or two after work, but once I started my job in China, I began to notice that my coworkers were all walking around with large (about 0.5 L) lidded cups. Those cups were filled with tea that had tea leaves floating around in it.
Upon closer inspection, I noticed a strainer built into the top of the cup, keeping the loose tea leaves out of their mouths. This struck me as brilliant; not only could you carry your tea with you, as the cup had a lid, but you could easily enjoy loose leaf tea, which is almost always far superior in taste and quality to a tea bag.
Naturally, I asked my coworkers where they got these cups. When I learned they are sold all over the place, I immediately went to a nearby department store and purchased one for myself. I also questioned them about different varieties of tea and picked up a large bag of loose leaf green tea at the same time.
The next morning, I put some tea leaves in my new cup and filled it with hot water. I had never bothered to make myself tea in the morning before, since I never really had enough time to drink it, but now I could just take it with me on the bus and sip it on the way to work.
Throughout the day at work, whenever I finished a cup of tea, I would simply sprinkle a few more dry leaves onto the wet ones still in the bottom and make a new cup. I took the cup home after work and had more tea at home. At night, after my last cup, I would dump the leaves in the toilet and wash out the cup.
Since that day, I have been drinking tea like this just about every day. I drink it all day long, since it really takes very little effort to heat up some water and sprinkle some leaves in the cup. And while the tea is more expensive than tap water, even expensive teas are cheaper than any other kind of drink, including bottled water.
That becomes even more true, when you consider that this method of drinking tea does not require expensive teas. Higher quality teas need to be brewed in a certain way to get the most out of them. Brewing them in a cup like this is not really ideal, so you can use cheaper leaves and still get the same taste. That said, some quality teas, notably Chinese green teas like Longjing (Dragon Well Tea), are actually best brewed in this fashion.
As I bought my cup in China, I don't really have a recommendation, but a Google search for "travel tea cup" brought up a few options. I'm sure you can find one on Amazon.com as well. So, get yourself a cup like this as soon as you can and start drinking tea all day, every day. Your body will thank you.
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