EASY AND HEALTHY RECIPES, TIPS FOR HEALTHY LIVING, FOOD REVIEWS, ETC

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

TeaFu -- tea infuser

We love our tea.  My family enjoys cups of herbal teas daily -- green tea, bitter melon tea, lemon grass tea, Jason Winters tea are just a few.  Green tea is rich in antioxidants and compounds that promote health, preventing heart disease and fighting cancer. It is a very popular beverage in the East. 

Bitter gourd/ bitter melon tea is made from the fruit and stems of Momordica charantia.  It is traditionally used to lower blood sugar and control diabetes in Asia, Africa and Latin America.  It is used for cancer prevention and valued for it's strong antioxidant activities.  

Lemon grass tea is made from the leaves and stalks of a tropical plant that has a distinct lemony flavor and aroma.  I make my lemon grass tea fresh from our plant that grows outdoors in summer.  In Thailand and other parts of Asia, we use lemon grass regularly in cooking but lately it has become even more popular for it's anticancer potential.  This was after scientists in Israel showed lemon grass extracts could kill cancer cells.  

Jason Winters Tea is a blend of Red Clover, Indian Sage Leaf, Chaparral and Herbalene® Blend (special spice).  This blend is supposed to be so effective in treating squamous cell carcinoma and other cancers.  

I've use tea balls and tea scoops in making cups of tea but it takes time and it's hard to strain all the tea out.  I recently discovered Tea Fu - it's a tea infuser that's so pretty and convenient.  It's shape makes it easy to scoop tea, let's you brew tea fast by squeezing the silicon tea pod so water circulates through the tea leaves. 

It's made by DreamFarm, a unique company that also makes Garject, a garlic press that's so cool, it won the Australian International Design Awards this year.  It  presses unpeeled garlic then automatically scrapes itself clean, and then ejects the garlic peel into the bin in one fluid motion.  Lovely!