I'm just now reading Asian Health Secrets by Letha Hadady. She has a lot to 
say about teas, black, red, green, white, and oolong.
[log in to unmask]  Pat Barrett
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Paleo Phil" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2007 7:03 PM
Subject: Re: Green Tea / Black tea (was: Re: The Myth of the Healthfulness 
of Chocolate (Part Two))


>> 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.
>