15 July 2008

tea for me

It's been almost 3 years since I "quit" coffee (I might have about 3 cups of decaf in a year when the mood strikes). For some reason, it makes me feel ill, like I've taken too many spins on the tilt-a-whirl.

Now that I'm a serious tea drinker, I consume at least 3 cups of the stuff a day. Anything from green to white, ginger to chamomile, rooibos to English breakfast, and the occasional chai latte. And it has to at least be organic, and fair trade if I can find it.

Dragonwell Organic Green Tea
At the office or on the go, I take along a bag of Yogi Tea or Traditional Medicinals and steep it in a ceramic or travel mug. At home, I prefer brewing up a pot of loose leaf in my Bodum pot. (I'm not a fan of the plastic strainer, even though polypropylene has a high melting point, so I'm looking to get a metal replacement.)

Here are some loose leaf teas along with their potential health benefits (according to Teavana):



Drink coffee?
Be sure it's organic, fair trade, and/or shade grown. Here are some coffee brands that fit the bill:

TNT-free demo

In Japan, they're implementing this pollution-saving way to demolition buildings. It's called daruma-otoshi, based on a video game of a similar concept. What they do is take the building apart from the bottom up instead of just blowing the whole thing up, which would scatter debris all over the place. It also saves about 20% of the time of just blowing the building up, as the clean up is more methodical and less laborious.



[Gizmodo via Kajima via Pink Tentacle]