Can You Afford to Ignore 5000 Years of Wisdom?

At school, we had a saying for those occasions where someone did something stupid and got into trouble ... "Confucious he say" followed by some related pearl of wisdom such as "not to drop water bombs when the headmaster is near". OK, it wasn't original and I think it had been picked up by one of the 'in-crowd' whilst watching one of the martial arts programmes on TV. We did not really appreciate who Confucious was or why it was appropriate to invoke him in these situations, it was just amusing and universal amongst our friendship group.

40 years down the line, a little more aware of the world, and the saying is now much more appreciated. Many pearls of wisdom have reached the 'West' from China, not least of all an increasing awareness of the role of natural products in the context of health and healing.

I first drank green tea in my 20s, but it was just bought from the local health shop as tea bags. It didn't taste any different to ordinary tea but it felt good to say "Actually, I drink green tea" - all rather pretentious (it was the 70s after all). It was not until much later in life that I came to realise that what I was drinking was the fannings (dust from processing tea) and no wonder there was little taste.

Next came Gunpowder green tea which seemed to have more flavour and I rather liked the rolled up pellets; it tasted perhaps slightly smoky and had more of an aroma that the health shop green tea.

Then I discovered real green tea. Gourmet quality green tea. That was an eye opener indeed, or rather a taste bud opener. The freshness, aroma and flavour of a quality green tea that hand picked and packed in China by small growers working organically and in a traditional way absolutely stunned me. I was hooked.

Then, as I started to look into it in more detail, I realised that not only was the flavour something else but it held so much more goodness. It contains antioxidant chemicals which can help your body combat the onset of cancer or heart disease for example. There are many other health benefits too because green tea is essentially unprocessed. Exactly as nature 'intended'.

Confucious probably would have had something to say about the stupidity that was drinking green tea from tea bags and feeling smug about it ... "Confucious he say not to drink tea bag tea when there is loose green tea available".