#995 Tea Totaled

Not long ago I was at a coffee shop having a tea. It’s part of my “get hot liquids as healthy as possible” campaign. I’m cold a lot as I head to the far side of middle age, and warm beverages seem to stave of the shivers. I figure if I’m going to drink hot liquids to get warmer, I at least need to avoid too much caffeine at the same time, as caffeine constricts one’s blood vessels and makes one even colder.
Then again, maybe it increases metabolic rate, and makes you warmer. In any event, tea is usually cheaper than fancy coffee and saving money at least makes me feel better.
I ordered a tea in a larger than normal cup for even more hot fluid. They charged me for a large tea. As I usually get two squeezings of tea and two vessels of hot water out of a small tea, I wondered why anyone would charge for a large tea.
Because, it turns out, they stuffed more in the hand-loaded tea bag. It’s funny, I read somewhere recently that tea can actually be rebrewed numerous times and should, in fact, be done so. Dry it out and do it again. It actually increases the potency of the benefits of tea.
But then, I also read you should not take tea totally steaming. It will cause esophageal cancer. That’s right, cancer of your food pipe. Your gruel gullet...chugalugger...cookie chucker.
A scientist noticed that occupants of a province in Iran had the highest rates of esophageal cancers in the world. Lots of guys with damaged esophagi. And the weird thing was they didn’t smoke or drink alcohol.
The only thing they did different was drink tea at higher than normal temperatures. Steaming hot, at over 158 degrees. Very hot tea leads to a 8-fold increase in the risk of esophageal cancer.
You can steep it hot, but wait at least 4 minutes to drink it. Large or small.
As I have a long list of other western carcinogens to worry about, I’m guessing I can take more than tepid tea.
But hey, I loved having this opportunity to repeatedly say esophageal.
America, ya gotta love it.