> On Tue, 13 Mar 2007 18:11:18 -0400, Paleo Phil <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> >[...] though black tea is
> >also fermented and neither Cordain nor Ray Audette prohibit black tea.
> Ray
> >does say that green tea is preferable (black tea is just fermented
> green
> >tea).

Juergen Botz:
> So many misconceptions, so little time to correct them all.  ;-)
> 
> Thanks for helping clear up the cocoa "bean" bit... let me clear this
> one up
> for you.  Black tea is not "fermented".  That term is frequently used,
> but
> it is incorrect.  In reality it is merely oxidized, in a process that
> could
> very easily be paleo.

That's great news, thanks. I feel even better about drinking black tea now.
:-) I first read about black tea supposedly being fermented in NeanderThin
and saw that repeated elsewhere. Looks like Ray got that wrong too, along
with cocoa "beans."

Apparently the oxidation of cacao beans is also called "fermentation" for
some reason. I wonder why this is?

> As to whether or not tea (green or black) is paleo in the strict sense,
> the
> correct answer is, we don't know.  Present day hunter gatherers make
> medicinal infusions or decoctions of herbs, even if they do not have
> pottery.

I think it's safe to say that tea is Paleo. We know that Stone Agers ate
herbs. We also know that other animals use herbs medicinally as well as for
food, so consumption of herbs as both food and medicine predates humans.
Steeping herbs in water could theoretically have begun any time after fire
was first controlled (and consumption of sun tea could have started
earlier), which may have been more than a million years ago, by some
estimates. While records of Asian tea drinking only go back about 5000
years, Asian tea leaves are edible herbs and all edible herbs are considered
Paleo. Flowers, leaves, bark, roots, or berries are also consumed as teas.