Alright guys, this popped into my head when I was standing in line to buy some textbooks today (weird, eh?)
Ok, qigong and stuff says to avoid excess caffiene, right? Cuz yeah, it’s not natural and stuff and can cause funky imbalances and stuff. But, (big stereotype approaching) Asian people drink tea all the time.
Whenever you go to a Chinese or Japanese restaurant they serve you green tea. Green tea is loaded with caffiene. And in movies you always see master drinking their tea.
So does all this caffiene they must get interefere with their qigong?
Teas have less caffeine than coffee, I think like 80 mg to 300mg.
Also, most chinese teas are not necessarily the same level of fermentation as the “green tea.” In general, i think more fermentation, the darker the color and the more concentrated it becomes, therefore more caffeine?
I could be really wrong, since I don’t remember crap from that chinese tea course…
Tea as most westerns know it, the stuff that brits drink and the well known “Melrose tea” and such has quite a bit of caffein but that’s not the same as green tea.
Interestingly enough a woman invited the entire TKD club to a chinese tea room and we discussed tea for about 20 minutes while drinking green tea, tasted pretty good and we learned a lot about green tea Although i cant remember it all.
When I was in Imperial Tea Court, a famous place in San Fran Chinatown, the proprietor told me that studies had shown that the molecular structure of the caffeine in green/chinese tea is different from that of coffee and therefore it affects you differently, plus it has less caffeine. Chinese green tea is very good for you- but buy it loose/in leaf form, not in tea bags. Imperial tea court has a website you can order from- do an internet search or call information in san fran.
There are also a helluva lot of smokers, alcoholics and drug addicts in China, too. Just because their medical tradition might not advocate it doesn’t mean that everyone in that culture believes and/or obeys that advice.
Western med. says similar things about caffeine. It also tells us to cut down on dietary fat and simple sugars, but there are still plenty of American folks on line at McDonald’s last time I checked.
Caffeine is not entirely proscribed in TCM. Small amounts can be very useful in regulating winter metal dullness, dispelling early cold, and in the treatment of constipation.
There are also studies showing that caffeine can stimulate the brain and boost cognitive thinking for short periods of time, along with providing a certain degree of protection from radiation (at least in rats).
Green teas have less caffiene than black teas (and coffee). They have been fermented for a shorter time as well - I can’t remember the significance of this but I remember it being pretty important.
There are two kinds of tea in Japan. Japanese green tea is called “ocha” and Chinese tea is called “kocha”. The Japanese believe that tea is beneficial to their health. That’s why they drink a lot of green tea.
The Japanese smoke more than the Americans do. But there are less cases of lung cancer in Japan than in America. The Japanese attribute it to their habit of drinking tea.
Although i cant remember it all.