Nov 17
One calm Saturday afternoon, following a sushi binge, I decided to partake of the tea bar at the local Whole Foods. They possessed a couple of varieties I had yet to test, a seven-year vintage pu-erh and matcha (i.e. Japanese powdered tea). I waxed teaholic with the tea clerk - a cute and kinda nerdy Chinese gal in her early twenties - as I sipped by green, soupish stuff. Our dialogue was interrupted by a women in her early forties.
"Excuse me, but do you have any Wu-Yi tea?" she asked.
The clerk kinda looked at her funny, "Do...you mean our Wuyi Oolong?"
"I dunno, I heard about this stuff on Oprah," she said. "It's good for weight loss."
The tea clerkette used this as a perfect opportunity to tell the sheepish woman about the oolong that she mentioned. Her mention of a "Wu-Yi tea" also had me intrigued. My own mother had mentioned hearing something from Her Oprah-ness about oolong tea and weight loss. Perhaps the two were connected. I went to digging. What I learned on the "Interweb" made me roll my eyes.
Wu-Yi tea was indeed just oolong tea. For those who don't know, the development of oolong was like the origin story to Guinness. Both recipes were found entirely by accident, or so the legend goes. Some guy in Ancient China - who was harvesting and cultivating leaves for green tea use - apparently got distracted by a deer, or so the legend goes. By the time he remembered about the tea leaves he was picking, they had already dried and oxidized, thus leading to a darker brew.
Oolong isn't quite as dark or fermented as black tea. It's only somewhat more oxidized than green tea, and doesn't have any of the bitterness of a black brew. Nor does it possess the leafy lingering in the mouth that green tea does. It's quite good and good for you, but it's hardly a "magic tea".
The name "Wuyi" signifies the mountain in Fujian (a province in China) where the tea was allegedly first produced. Names of different teas are often derived from the region they hail from or the properties of the leaves themselves. Wuyi is no different. If you're drinking a Wuyi brand of oolong, you're drinking tea from that region. It's just a name, not a sorcerer's sigil.
I, then, decided to research the companies that were touting this as a miracle weight loss regimen. What a surprise, they were full of shit. The biggest culprit was Wu-Yi Source. They claimed that it was a secret passed down among the Chinese for over 400 years.While the time period may be true, the reason for it's development were not. It was not a tea specifically designed for weight loss. Nor would it grant any such svelte-ness to those who tried it.
Tea helps to maintain the weight you have, and acts as a good compliment to a diet/exercise regimen, but nothing more. Other diet teas that are on the market oftentimes contain senna, which is an interesting herb. An interesting herbal laxative!
The last path one wants to resort to...is literally "dumping" the weight out.
"Excuse me, but do you have any Wu-Yi tea?" she asked.
The clerk kinda looked at her funny, "Do...you mean our Wuyi Oolong?"
"I dunno, I heard about this stuff on Oprah," she said. "It's good for weight loss."
The tea clerkette used this as a perfect opportunity to tell the sheepish woman about the oolong that she mentioned. Her mention of a "Wu-Yi tea" also had me intrigued. My own mother had mentioned hearing something from Her Oprah-ness about oolong tea and weight loss. Perhaps the two were connected. I went to digging. What I learned on the "Interweb" made me roll my eyes.
Wu-Yi tea was indeed just oolong tea. For those who don't know, the development of oolong was like the origin story to Guinness. Both recipes were found entirely by accident, or so the legend goes. Some guy in Ancient China - who was harvesting and cultivating leaves for green tea use - apparently got distracted by a deer, or so the legend goes. By the time he remembered about the tea leaves he was picking, they had already dried and oxidized, thus leading to a darker brew.
Oolong isn't quite as dark or fermented as black tea. It's only somewhat more oxidized than green tea, and doesn't have any of the bitterness of a black brew. Nor does it possess the leafy lingering in the mouth that green tea does. It's quite good and good for you, but it's hardly a "magic tea".
The name "Wuyi" signifies the mountain in Fujian (a province in China) where the tea was allegedly first produced. Names of different teas are often derived from the region they hail from or the properties of the leaves themselves. Wuyi is no different. If you're drinking a Wuyi brand of oolong, you're drinking tea from that region. It's just a name, not a sorcerer's sigil.
I, then, decided to research the companies that were touting this as a miracle weight loss regimen. What a surprise, they were full of shit. The biggest culprit was Wu-Yi Source. They claimed that it was a secret passed down among the Chinese for over 400 years.While the time period may be true, the reason for it's development were not. It was not a tea specifically designed for weight loss. Nor would it grant any such svelte-ness to those who tried it.
Tea helps to maintain the weight you have, and acts as a good compliment to a diet/exercise regimen, but nothing more. Other diet teas that are on the market oftentimes contain senna, which is an interesting herb. An interesting herbal laxative!
The last path one wants to resort to...is literally "dumping" the weight out.
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Geoff Teaviews.com Reviewer » Read more about this reviewer on Geoff's profile page. » Find a list of recent posts by Geoff. |
November 17th, 2008 at 1:35 am
Well its entirely possible that Wuyi was used in ancient china as a diet medicine, whether or not it actually ever worked is another matter entirely. But yeah, the “Oprah diet” is pretty much just her and “Mr. Tea” trying to hawk Oolong… Although tea has been linked in a few well done studies with weight-loss and the extra energy, sans the energy drink crash, is probably a boost for exercise….
Whole foods has a teabar?
November 17th, 2008 at 9:20 am
My Whole Foods does not have a tea bar:( They do however have a tea aisle and area where you can purchase loose, but they don’t really make any drinks or anything.
November 17th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
The one in my neighborhood does, but it’s affiliated with a local tea company called Tao of Tea. They also run the teashop in the Portland Classical Chinese Garden.
http://www.taooftea.com
November 17th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
My Aunt bought into this scam hook, line and sinker. It is just oolong teabags with some extra tea extract added. Consider the low quality of nearly all tea bags, you’d probably get the same benefit from just enjoying a cup of loose leaf oolong.
November 17th, 2008 at 11:59 pm
Nicole,
I agree and also suspect that the amount of oolong that you would have to drink to realize any benefits would be substantial. I think that drinking oolong following any meal can’t hurt but it is the same idea as drinking a lot of fluids period.
November 19th, 2008 at 1:56 am
Well tea can be used for weight loss… sorta
But yeah, drinking it won’t magically make you thin.
I don’t generally hit the health food stores, but I recently walked into The Staff Of Life in Santa Cruz. Now they didn’t have a tea bar, but they did have a jar simply labeled LOVE…
I got LOTS of milage out of that.
“Hey do you need a little love?”
“Can I get a Price Check on LOVE?”
“Who the heck says you can’t buy love, its 67 cents an ounce.”
“I knew it! Love is mostly Green Tea and Walnuts!”
“No wonder I’ve been bummed, My grocer only stocks pessimism and self loathing.”
November 23rd, 2008 at 11:41 am
My favourite part of all that gibberish is the bit about the secret weight loss recipe being passed down for hundreds of years in China. Correct me if I’m wrong here, but hundreds of years ago in China, it was considered beautiful to be a bit chubby since it proved you had money. Why would you want to lose weight if skinny wasn’t as attractive?
If tea was really a magical weight loss drink, I’d have to give it up
December 18th, 2008 at 7:45 am
I’ve been trying to find a reference on the web to “Wuyi†as a location or geographical entity anywhere in China, so I’m glad to see your suggestion that the name ’signifies a mountain in Fujian’ where the tea was allegedly first produced. You state that ‘Names of different teas are often derived from the region they hail from or the properties of the leaves themselves.’ That’s true especially for Chinese tea; the Chinese are especially creative when it comes to naming their tea, e.g., China Green “Mist in the Gorges” or “Shou Mei” ‘Longevity Eyebrow’ tea (?)
You stated the following, “I, then, decided to research the companies that were touting this as a miracle weight loss regimen. What a surprise, they were full of shit.”
Yeah, these people who sell stuff that may or may not be authentic something, possibly even REAL Wuyi Oolong – whatever that is, if it even has a definitive origin – these people are indeed full of scat and should go see the place they send Bernie.