Tea in Bangladesh

A BBC reporter travels to Bangladesh to investigate the tea culture there.



A seven-year-old making what the author would later recall as "the best cup of tea I had in Bangladesh." Yes, but did he leave a decent tip?

—Mellow Monk

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The Asian paradox, redux

Here is another article on the possible role of green tea in the "Asian paradox"—Asia's low rates of heart disease and lung cancer despite the large percentages of people in those countries who smoke.



"Sit down, take a load off, and have a nice cup of tea, won't you?"


—Mellow Monk

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How does it feel knowing there are dead people making more money than you?

And these folks who have long passed to the other side are making serious money.

But don't feel too bad about your own paycheck, because these hard-working souls—rimshot!—are no ordinary people. These are dead celebrities.

For instance, did you know that Elvis Presley—I love his music, by the way—has been the top-earning dead celebrity in the world, earning between 30 and 40 million dollars every year since at least 2001?

Perhaps Lisa-Marie would like some free tea...

—Mellow Monk

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Willing your way to happiness

I don't know whether it's possible to will you way to happiness, as suggested by the Boulder, Colorado think tank profiled in this article, but attitude does make a huge difference in life.

With a view like this, I bet it's hard not to have a positive outlook.


—Mellow Monk

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Vacation deprivation

Here are some depressing statistics about vacationing from Amy Joyce's recent " Life at Work" column:

• One in four American workers plans to work while on vacation in 2006.
  
• Also in 2006, American workers are expected to give back 574 million vacation days.
  

I know how it is to feel like you're too busy to take a vacation. I was there; I know what it's like. There was a time when I had come to the perverse conclusion that it would be better for me stress-wise not to take a vacation, or to take only the bare minimum time off needed to placate the wife and kids. By avoiding the crunches that I would have to endure to prepare for and to make up for the vacation, I'd be better off ... somehow. (It all made sense back then.)

Then I went through some serious stress-related health problems—neck and back aches, insomnia, the works—and I finally realized it was a state-of-mind problem: Sometimes, you just have to put your well-being first.

Easier said than done, I know. But as someone said, nobody on his deathbed ever said, "I wish I'd spent more time working."

—Mellow Monk

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Lightning photographs

If you like photographs of lightning, this is the site for you.



"Hey, Vern. Why don't you go outside and see what all that ruckus is about."


—Mellow Monk

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Italians discover the wonders of green tea

Bad news for Italy's cappuccino vendors: Italians are drinking more tea, with sales of green tea showing an especially strong increase.



Says an Italian tea connoisseur: "Questo tè è buono, ma non è buono quanto 'il monk mellow'."


—Mellow Monk

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Bug photos

If you like insects--that is, if you're fascinated by them--you'll like this page. Check out an example pic below.



Says Miss Mantis: "I'm looking for a man who is strong but supportive ... and who doesn't mind being devoured after mating."

—Mellow Monk

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Rare tea fetches a record price at auction

At an auction in Las Vegas, tea connoisseur and entrepreneur Jennifer Cauble, of Fort Worth, Texas, bought 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of very rare, very expensive tea from India's Nilgiri region.

Her winning bid? Six hundred bucks a kilo, for a grand total of six thousand dollars, believed to be the highest price ever paid for black tea at an auction.



When told that his wife had just paid $6,000 for 22 pounds of tea, Mr. Cauble replied, "That does it. I'm getting that big-screen high-def TV now."


—Mellow Monk

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The Australians are drinking more green tea, too

Those Aussies know a good thing when they see it.

In Australia, sales of traditional black tea are down, but other categories of tea are showing solid growth. The tea exhibiting the strongest growth is, of course, green tea.

—Mellow Monk

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A green tea punch for shifting into low gear

Here's a simple recipe for green tea punch.

Forgiving the recipe's author for even suggesting bagged tea as a possible substitute for true loose-leaf tea, use a heaping teaspoon of Mellow Monk to make an 8-ounce cup of extra-brisk green tea. The tea should be stronger than usual since it's going to be diluted with fruit juice. We still want to taste the green tea, do we not?

Also, notice the recipe calls for "boiled water, slightly cooled." How perfectly British, dahling. But I like that--because there's no need to worry your li'l ol' head about exact water temperature. Heat the water until it starts to boil, then turn off the heat and let it sit for a few minutes, with the top of the kettle off or the top of the electric kettle open or whatever. We want the water to cool off a little bit, so we don't scald the tea, but we don't have to stress about the exact temperatures.

After all, green tea is all about relaxing.

—Mellow Monk

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Iced tea recipes galore!

Summer's here—time to brew up the iced green tea.

This page has a lot of tasty-sounding recipes. Wherever you see "black tea" or "oolong tea," simply replace it with "green tea."

And these recipes are only a starting point. Like the article says, the only requirements are tea and ice. Beyond that, the sky's the limit.



You cannot resist my allure. Drink me. Drink me!

—Mellow Monk

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Freeloader? Who you callin' a freeloader?

ZDNet columnist Donna Bogatin writes that most of the membership of social websites like Digg and Wikipedia are what she terms freeloaders.

For instance...

Wikipedia’s “small core community” that does the vast majority of the work reflects the extremely low ratio of contributing users to non-contributing users throughout the new social Web that relies on user contributions for its content.

Her point is that although companies like Digg are preparing to sell their supposed up-to-the-second knowledge about what young people with money to burn are talking about, the reality is that the web sites' content is created not by all of the millions of people who have registered, but by a core of dedicated users—sometimes numbering in the low thousands or fewer—who do all the writing. So what they think is cool isn't exactly representative of the other 99% of registered users.

But I have a problem with the use of the term "freeloader." I visit sites like Digg.com and Wikipedia.com a lot. Participation isn't exactly actively encouraged. It may be obvious how to create an account, but important big-picture details such as what being a member entails is not explained clearly at all.

Social websites' low-key approach to enrolling new members may be for a good reason: They're afraid of attracting the Internet equivalent of hecklers and vandals. (Some "active contributers" in Wikipedia, for instance, get their kicks adding "humorous" sentences to serious articles: "Abe Lincoln is some dead guy with a beard.")

Like many things, the problem is also one of perspective: The owners of a social website may look and see a site burdened with freeloaders, but the "freeloaders" see a website with an exclusionary culture, one that, for whatever reason, does not encourage wider participation.

Remember, grasshopper, that no matter what kind of problem a company faces, responsibility for dealing with the problem lies with he who takes home the biggest paycheck.

—Mellow Monk

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Taking frequent breaks improves memory. Wait. Where did I leave those keys?

Now this is something we can all relate to.

Some scientists did some research on memory and how it's affected by how busy we are. These no doubt busy scientists found that taking breaks helps you form new memories. In other words, it's easier to remember stuff if you've been taking regular breaks at work.

That means taking regular breaks all the time, not just when we think we can, like after work, but all the time.

Got it?

Or have you forgotten the topic already, you road warrior, you.

When asked how he felt about participating in the groundbreaking study, Mister Rat replied, "I smell cheese somewhere. Do you smell cheese?"

—Mellow Monk

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Hey, doc, check the expiration date on that blood, will ya?

As if there weren't enough to worry about when having surgery. Now you have to worry about the "best if used by" date on the blood being transfused into you:

Death rates after heart surgery are five times higher for patients who are given blood that has been stored for more than 31 days than for those given blood stored for 19 days or less. If the finding is confirmed by larger studies, it could suggest that high-risk patients should be given fresher blood, which may be better able to deliver oxygen.

—Mellow Monk

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Tea is hip to sip

From an article in the Wisconsin State Journal:

"Tea is a way for people to relax," said Amy Regutti, who owns White Lotus Teas in addition to an acupuncture studio on North Street on Madison's East Side. "I see a lot of people with job stress here, people who have more and more work dumped on them as staffs are reduced. Tea is soothing. And with all the different flavors, it's like aromatherapy."

—Mellow Monk

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Magnetism to treat migraines

Here's an article about a new device, about the size of a hair dryer, that generates a
magnetic field which the manufacturer purports can prevent the onset of migraine headaches.

—Mellow Monk

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The Mellow Monk Green Tea Summer Fruit Splash

Here's a recipe for a great-tasting healthy drink to beat the summer heat: the Mellow Monk Green Tea Summer Fruit Splash.

Ingredients

• 1 teaspoon Mellow Monk loose-leaf green tea
  
• 8 oz. spring water*
  
• 4 oz. unflavored sparkling water
  
• 5 ice cubes
  
• 1/2 peach, pitted**
  
• 1 large (16-20 oz.) cup or glass.
  

*Or filtered water or, if you must, tap water.


**Instead of a peach, you can use strawberries (3-4), pineapple (3-4 cubes or 1 ring), blueberries (5-6), or whatever your favorite summer fruit is.

Steps

1. Use a teaspoon of Mellow Monk green tea leaves and 8 oz. of mineral water to make a serving of double-strength tea. (Normal strength would be 1/2 teaspoon per 8 oz. water.)
   
2. Let the tea cool, then pour into the large cup.
   
3. Add all of the ice cubes.
   
4. Add all of the sparkling water.
   
5. Drop the fruit into the cup or glass, then use a spoon to mash it slightly.
   
6. Mix gently, then enjoy!
   

Notes

• Letting the mashed fruit sit in the tea mixture for a few minutes allows the juices to infuse into the drink, for a fruitier flavor.
  
• Don't waste the fruit—after finishing your first glass of Summer Fruit Splash, make another with the same fruit.
  
• If you have time to plan ahead, make a pitcher of green tea and let it cool in the refrigerator for a few hours ahead of time. The cooler the tea is, the more slowly the ice will melt.
  
• Have a Summer Fruit Splash party! Set a table with a pitcher or two of chilled, extra-strong Mellow Monk green tea, sparkling water, and small bowls of your favorite summer fruits. Experiment with different combinations of fruits, such as pineapple and strawberry. Yummy!
  

—Mellow Monk

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The art of Hisashi Tenmyoya

Contemporary Japanese artist Hisashi Tenmyoya has created some very interesting work blending the old and new of Japan—a classical style with modern components, such as the swimmer below.



One of my favorite works of his is this one, selected to be part of the official poster series of the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany.



—Mellow Monk

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Fish oil for good health

Health guru Dr. Andrew Weil writes why he still takes fish oil for his health despite the findings of one recent study.

Meanwhile, another groundbreaking study shows that fish oil is better than Ritalin at calming children with attention-deficit disorder.

—Mellow Monk

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Doin' the "Why Not?" dance

The year 1867 was a tumultuous time in Japan. The shogunate, the feudal government that had ruled the country for centuries, was collapsing. (The film The Last Samurai is based loosely--very loosely--on events that occurred in that period.) The samurai were losing ground to a patriotic movement that sought to overthrow the Shogun and modernize Japan. The movement's goal was to give the nation a modern government capable of defending the land from a world outside of Japan that had advanced by leaps and bounds while Japan had stagnated technologically under the seclusionist policies of the Shogunate. For the average Japanese, this was a time of great confusion and unease: They knew their very way of life would be transformed. Not only that, they realized how vulnerable Japan was to the European powers. They had to modernize, and nothing would ever be the same again.

How did the people react? Did they run around in a panic? Did they riot? No. They simply kicked up their heels, waved their hands in the air, and chanted as they danced: Eejanaika, eijanaika, which can be translated as "Why not?" or "What's wrong with that?" (A possible translation in Australian English would be "No worries, mate." Another equivalent is "Everything's gonna be all right.")

"Eejanaika," repeated over and over, was the chorus to patriotic songs sung by crowds at festivals and political rallies. Such events must have been quite a spectacle: Throngs of kimono-clad men and women singing in unison as they paraded through city streets. The dancing and celebrating started in one city but eventually spread throughout the land. From a modern point of view, we would say the phenomenon was probably part celebration, part mass hysteria. It was also a show of support for the political changes that were happening (and against the samurai who were scheming to hold onto power). Even today, the phrase "Eejanaika" is widely associated in Japan with that period in history. There was even a movie made about that period titled Eejanaika.)

Sure, change is scary. But sometime, in this crazy world, you just have to stand up, wave your hands in the air, and do the "Why Not?" dance.

—Mellow Monk

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South Korea's most famous green tea plantation

South Korea's Boseong Tea Plantation is well known by sight (if not by name) because of the many commercials, dramas, and movies that have been filmed there.





—Mellow Monk

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Toyota, builder of homes

Toyota is making prefabricated homes. As you can imagine, they do it very efficiently.

The article doesn't say whether the homes come with that new-car smell, but then again, if they don't, that's probably a good thing.





—Mellow Monk

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The best really is yet to come

From this article:

Back when he was 20 years old in 1965, rock star Pete Townshend wrote the line "I hope I die before I get old" into a song, "My Generation" that launched his band, the Who, onto the rock 'n' roll scene.

But a unique new study suggests that Townshend may have fallen victim to a common, and mistaken, belief: That the happiest days of people's lives occur when they're young.

—Mellow Monk

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The Simpsons and C.C. Lemon

As stated on Wikipedia recently: In Japan, the characters from The Simpsons are more widely know for "appearing" in commercials for the soft drink C.C. Lemon than they are from the TV show itself.





—Mellow Monk

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Japan's baddest bug

Take a look at one of the baddest--as in most feared--bugs in Japan: the Asian giant hornet (oosuzumebachi).

Would you pose with one of those bad boys on your hand? Me neither.





—Mellow Monk

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The view from 8,000 feet

Not for those squeamishly afraid of heights: photos taken from a hot-air balloon from eight thousand feet up





—Mellow Monk

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Mellow Monk spoofed by a spammer: Update

In a previous posting I wrote that a spammer was spoofing the MellowMonk.com domain—using made-up email addresses in the reply-to field so that his emails appear to come from us. But the business in question is using our domain without our permission and is in no way affiliated with Mellow Monk.

If you received one of those emails, please know that we were not the senders. We sell only tea, and we don't send out spam.

I apologize for the inconvenience, but at this point there's nothing we can do: Unfortunately, this can happen to just about anyone, and there seems to be no way to stop it. The laws just haven't caught up with the technology.

—Mellow Monk

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Japan's oldest man dies at 111

Japan's oldest man, Nijiro Tokuda of Kagoshima, has died at the age of 111.

—Mellow Monk

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Rick Lee's amazing photos

While trying to figure out what to do about these knucklehead spammers who are spoofing my email, I thought I'd take a break and post a link to some of Rick Lee's mellowness-inducing nature photos.

—Mellow Monk


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Help! Spammers are hijacking the mellowmonk domain!

The Monk needs your help!

It seems that spammers are illegally using the mellowmonk dot com domain in "reply to" addresses in junk email they're sending through cyberspace.

I know that they're doing this because undeliverable emails are being bounced to me.

Unfortunately, the bounced emails I get don't contain the information I need most: information about the actual sender. I'd like to track this person down and let him do some serious, long-term meditation in Sing-Sing.

If anyone has received one of these junk emails, please forward it to me. Or, if you have any suggestions on what to do (my domain hosting service basically told me to call the cops), please drop me a line at [monk at mellowmonk dot com].

This unlawful use of my domain name is a form of identity theft that could do serious damage to Mellow Monk's name and reputation, as people are getting spam from disreputable parties that appears to be affiliated with Mellow Monk.

Your assistance is appreciated!

—Mellow Monk

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Japan's ultra-surreal "Zuiikin' English"

This may well be the strangest, most surreal thing you see all day.

But first, a little background.

Three of Japan's biggest obsessions are learning English, getting in shape, and watching attractive young females. So why not combine all three into one TV show? That's exactly what the creators of "Zuiikin' English" did.

"Zuiikin" means "voluntary muscles" and refers to the belief that since physical actions are often easier to memorize than something only seen or heard, English phrases practiced while doing mild aerobic exercises should stay with you longer than if you had just practiced the phrase with a book or audio CD.

Hey, I'm not vouching for the veracity of the theory, just relaying what is stated at the show's official website [Japanese only].

I've always felt that unintionally humorous things are always funnier than satire, and this is definitely the case with "Zuiikin' English": You just can't make this stuff up, as the saying goes.

And as if the concept alone weren't surreal enough, this particular segment deals with sharp rebuttals. One of the basic concepts of humor is contrast, and there's contrast in spades between the smiling Zuiikin' Girls aerobicizing to a sappy melody and the blunt English expressions they are practicing.





—Mellow Monk

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Green tea, the strong persuader

A study shows that people are more open to suggestions (such as "Can I have a raise?") after they've consumed caffeine.

It could be that caffeine simply puts a person in a good mood, and when someone is in a good mood, they’re usually more amenable to doing the right thing.

If that’s the case, then green tea should do an even better job—it contains theanine, which has been shown to make people mellow.

—Mellow Monk

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The economic costs of sleep deprivation

According to this study, sleep deprivation costs Japan over $30 billion a year, primarily through the reduced productivity, health problems, and traffic accidents, etc., of the sleep deprived.

—Mellow Monk

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Samurai robot

Here's a Reuters video of an actual Japanese robot named Kiyomori and dressed up like the 12th-century general after whom the robot is named.

The robot's movements are eerily humanlike.

—Mellow Monk

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Japan's delectable cream puffs

First the good news about the little pastries made by Japanese cream puff chain Beard Papa's:

The dessert in question contains custard and whipped cream -- speckled with tiny pieces of vanilla bean -- inside an inner shell of choux pastry and an outer layer of pie crust.

Now the bad news: The little buggers pack a whopping 220 calories apiece!

More bad news: Beard Papa's currently has only 13 outlets in the U.S., and none of them take mail orders.

If anyone's tried one of these delicious-sounding treats, please report in!

—Mellow Monk

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Don't overstress about kids' food allergies

A study shows that a lot of parents may be unnecessarily restricting their children's diets out of fear of food allergies:

Dr Taraneh Dean ... found that 54 per cent of a group of one-year-olds were being made to avoid some foods because their parents perceived them to have had reactions to items such as cow's milk, wheat, eggs or additives. Overall, however, only two to six per cent of the infants had clinically confirmed food hypersensitivity ....

—Mellow Monk

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How bilingual brains work

Here is an article about a study elucidating how the brains of the multilingual switch between languages:

When [bilingual] volunteers read two words with the same meaning but in different languages, or two words in the same language with unrelated meanings, the left caudate region in their brains became more active than when they read two words from the same language with a similar theme. This held true across both language groups.

—Mellow Monk

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Rehab for video game addicts

You read it here first: Europe now has a detox center for video game addicts.

My apologies to anyone who got hooked on Frogger due to a recent posting of mine.

—Mellow Monk

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Canadians dig green tea too, eh

Green tea is making inroads in Canada, too.

—Mellow Monk

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Tokyo on the cheap ... in Asakusa

A writer for the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune describes his shoestring-budget trip to Tokyo.

He ended up staying in the Asakusa district, which was Tokyo's main entertainment district in the old days. After the war, the action shifted to new, modern districts like Ginza and Shibuya.

I was in Tokyo last year and made it a point to visit Asakusa. The old-style atmosphere there was great. I especially liked the Sensoji.

While strolling through Asakusa, the family and I stopped at a funky, run-down-looking little shop nearly called Yoshinoya. No, not that Yoshinoya, but the place in the picture below. The wife and kids slurped kakigori (shaved ice) while I had a nice cold beer with the gragarious and chatty owner. The shop looked about a hundred years old, as if the wind from a passing car would knock it over. But that was part of its charm. If you're ever in the neighborhood, do stop by. And tell Mr. Yoshino that Mellow Monk sent you.





—Mellow Monk

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Defend yourself against sugar

Here's an article from Men's Health about flipping the fat switch—learning "how to defend your gut against sugar—without giving up the foods you love."

—Mellow Monk

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Green tea politics in Kenya

In Kenya, a huge tea plantation is ready to fill "major orders for a new tea variety set to be launched in the U.S." The owners begin to roll out big, expensive tea-picking machines, but after eighty thousand workers threaten to strike, Kenya's Minister of Labor orders the removal of the machines.

(Meanwhile, in Aso, Japan, the hard-working Nagata Family keeps producing tea for Mellow Monk on its small, family-owned and -operated tea farm.)

—Mellow Monk

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Japan's stress-relief industry

Japan's large and varied stress-relief industry features such activities as hot sand baths (pictured below) and spending the night with glowing jellyfish at an aquarium—not in the tank with the jellyfish, but in sleeping bags on the floor next to the tank.

(Registration at the Washington Post, where the above article is located, is required but free. The Post often runs stories about Japan and things Japanese, so I link to it a couple times a month.)





—Mellow Monk

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Green tea and the "Asian paradox"

Green tea is considered one possible solution to the so-called Asian paradox—the low rates of heart disease and cancer in Japan and other Asian countries despite higher cigarette consumption there.

—Mellow Monk

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Shredder scissors

A Japanese company has come out with shredder scissors—a pair of scissors with five parallel sets of blades.

But after reading the description page I realized that the product has a fatal flaw, at least for the American market: It can't cut credit cards!

Oh, well. At least it's good for making confetti.





—Mellow Monk

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Scenes from a Japanese fish market

Here is a slew of photographs of Tsukiji, a Japanese fish market that is the world's largest.






—Mellow Monk

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Coming to America: Japanese convenience stores

Japan's Famima convenience store chain has landed in the U.S., but some industry insiders say it faces a tough fight:

[Famima] will get squeezed by an increasingly competitive convenience store industry that includes players like 7-Eleven, which has been owned by parent 7-Eleven Japan since last year. Britain's dominant supermarket chain, Tesco PLC, announced this month that it's entering the U.S. market with a string of mini-marts it plans to start opening on the West Coast in 2007.

(This article's a little old, but I haven't found any more-recent news on the subject.)

—Mellow Monk

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Iced green tea for the summer

It's that time of year again, so here's a previous post on making iced green tea.

The How to Brew page of our website also has instructions for making iced green tea.





—Mellow Monk

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Hangover culprit found by Japanese researchers

Not that this news will do you any good this morning, but Japanese researchers claim to have found the chemical culprit behinds hangovers:

Acetaldehyde may be the culprit behind hangovers, according to new research from Japan. ... The problem many East Asians have in drinking alcohol is that their livers have a mutant form of the enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase-2 (ALDH2), which in other people eliminates the acetaldehyde formed by ethanol metabolism, but often fails to do its job properly in East Asians, which means they suffer worse hangovers as this toxic compound stays in their system at higher concentrations than it would otherwise do so.

—Mellow Monk

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Now for dessert: pit viper ice cream

If you ever wake up in the middle of the night with a craving for pit viper ice cream or some other hard-to-find flavor, you'll know where to go: Japan.

(Click on the photo below—of mamushi (pit viper) flavor—to see more unusual flavors.)





—Mellow Monk

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Japanese "sushi shop" term for tea: agari

Just like the American restaurant business has its own jargon ("cow" for milk), the world of sushi has its own terms for things. Green tea is called agari, which is actually a shortened form of agaribana, which means freshly brewed tea. (The -bana part is a variant of hana, or flower.) So, agaribana literally means "fresh flowers."

So, if you really want to impress your local sushi chef, say "Agaribana wo kudasai" (I'll have some tea, please). If he gives you a quizzical look (which happens a lot when a Japanese is addressed in Japanese by a foreigner), just say, "Agari" while making a drinking gesture with your hand. Once he gets your meaning, if you want to kid him even more, say, "Tadashii Nihongo deshou?" (That's correct Japanese, right?).

—Mellow Monk

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Eating and exercising your way to a healthy brain

Earlier this year, Science News ran a two-part feature about brain power. Part I is about exercise and the brain. Part II is about brain food.





—Mellow Monk

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Green tea and bad breath

Did you know? Green tea can also help get rid of bad breath (halitosis).

—Mellow Monk

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30-year-old plastic robot sells for big bucks in Japan!

Just when you thought the Japanese nation was a tad eccentric for obessing over shiny mud balls, an American comes along to show 'em we're still in the running, too...

An antique dealer in Japan found an old plastic robot, dusted it off, and put it up for auction online. The winning bid was placed by an American. The final price? 1.7 million yen, or about $15,000!

Sometimes I think I'm in the wrong business.





—Mellow Monk

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Urban samurai

More and more American urbanites are studying the Japanese art of kendo, or swordsmanship:

There is the money manager who credits kendo with keeping him sharp when making crucial investment decisions. There is the architect who says kendo enables him to handle high-pressure projects and harrowing deadlines. There is the Brooklyn woman who sleeps with her kendo sword next to her bed for security.

Any excuse to whack someone else with a stick, eh?

—Mellow Monk

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Japan invaded by shiny mud balls!

I kid you not: Shiny mud balls (hikaru dorodango) are a back-to-nature craft that is sweeping Japan's elementary schools.

Kids make fist-sized balls out of mud, let them dry, then compete to see who can make the roundest, shiniest one.

Oh, well. At least it gets the kids outside and away from their video games!





(How do they know they're shiny mud balls and not Horta eggs?)

—Mellow Monk

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