Titanium Teas

... ten minutes later, I was a state of alert near-euphoria. "Kombucha is actually a Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and yeast mixed with sugar and black tea," explains the manager of Qua Baths & Spa at Caesars Palace, Melissa Fielding.

Melissa also serves as in-house tea sommelier for the spa and new salon, Color-A Salon by Michael Boychuck.  "The culture looks like a pancake and a lot of people think the blend is made from a mushroom, but it is not.  The drink dates back as far as the Qin Dynasty.  People who drink this blend say it helps detoxify the liver, helps them feel and look younger, great for when they have a cold or flu, and improved their eyesight."

Kombu...huh?

 Still confused? Check out VitalJuiceDaily.com's Kombucha tip sheet: "While Kombucha dates back to 221 B.C., it's probably new to you. Best described as a cross between a tea and an elixir, Kombucha is made from raw (that means not pasteurized for you with sensitive stomachs) organic ingredients and a "cultured" kind of yogurt. (The label says there are 2 billion friendly "organisms" per serving – some that you can even see floating!)

Kombucha is a big player among the royalty of power teas – joined by Yerba Mate, Pu-erh, Matcha, Brazilian Porangaba, and others, that are renowned for not only their flavor or taste, but wildly believed abilities to do everything from improve the metabolism to enhance vitality.

Bottles of Kombucha tonic by GT and Synergy fly off the shelves at healthy foods markets, and Yogi's tea blends that contain Kombucha are among their most popular. (In fact, GT's Kombucha was available in 100 stores in 2006, now available in more than 500!) Part of the fizzy-probiatic foods trend, it seems to only be getting bigger.

Why the hype?

According to Jesse Jacobs, owner of the Samovar Tea Lounge in San Francisco, some of the teas taking notice in his business the past few years include the above for the following reasons:

1. Japanese Matcha powder: Caffeinated, smooth, creamy, slightly grassy, and heavily caffeinated, and loaded in antioxidants. This is great in smoothies, green tea shakes, and sprinkled over ice cream.

2. Pu-erh: Aged Chinese tea that is actually fermented, like a wine or cheese. Deep, chocolaty, earthy, and VERY low in caffeine, this is an ancient tea that has traditionally been used as a digestive, sipped with rich, heavy meals.

3. Yerba Mate: Bittersweet and vegetal, and super high in antioxidants. This is smooth, and lightly bitter, and fun when sipped traditionally from a bombilla straw.

Is Mate the new latte?
"The tea experience is about slowing down, taking time for friends and family, drinking something inherently healthy, embracing wakefulness, and appreciating life," says Jesse Jacobs. "By looking at the state of the world today (war, unemployment, divorce, crime, disconnected via technology from human interaction, frenzied urban living, etc.) it turns out that tea offers the perfect panacea to all that. Tea is literally the solution to all of those challenges, while coffee is about one thing only: getting an intense caffeine fix so you can get more work done."

SheKnows Tidbit: When ordering your Mate, remember it rhymes with Latte -- which makes getting a Mate Latte extra fun!                                                                                

Café culture has been a trend for much of the decade – did the trend explode? "Part of tea's rise can certainly be attributed to and extreme popularity and ubiquity of coffee," says Amanda Freeman, co-founder of VitalJuiceDaily.com , a popular daily health and wellness e-newsletter.

"Non-coffee drinkers started seeking out a more health-full alternative that served the same purpose – warm you up, wake you up, or a beverage to socialize and meet around.  Since places like Starbucks offer you endless coffee customization options, tea houses and tea makers have emulated that and started flooding the market with endless flavor choices."

A sip to your health
Or maybe tea was always here, just waiting to take control. "Tea is the world's second most popular beverage, after water," says Maria Uspenski, founder of The TeaSpot (www.the-teaspot.com ). in Colorado. The TeaSpot just launched the world's first Automatic Teapot to pair with its delicious loose-leaf teas.  One of their most popular loose-leaf blends is a Bolder Breakfast, which contains Pu'erh along with a hint of dark chocolate essence. Pu'erh, which is grown at Nam Nor mountain in Yunnan Province, is revered throughout Asia for its medicinal benefits, from curing hangovers to reducing cholesterol.

Now in great demand on the international market, Pu'erh tea is one of the most expensive teas available. "Americans are only catching up with the rest of the planet with the recent trend in tea consumption here. 100 million Americans drink three or more cups of coffee, each with well over 100 milligrams of caffeine, every day. The stress response that this dose of caffeine causes has adverse effects on the brain, nervous system, blood pressure and heart rate. Tea is the healthy alternative to coffee and alcohol. U.S. tea sales are up six-fold since 1990."

Uspenski believes what's driving the specialty tea marketplace in the US are the health benefits of tea and increasing awareness of it as well as greater availability of better quality products. Tea is now generally validated as "healthy," compared to alternatives (soda, alcohol and coffee), with a more potent antioxidant concentration than is found in foods touted for their antioxidant power, such as fruits, vegetables, vitamins C and E, or red wine. "The role antioxidants play in the prevention of cancer and cardiovascular disease has positioned loose-leaf tea as the ideal health  beverage," Uspenski says. "Tea is becoming the ultimate, affordable, healthy beverage of choice for millions of Americans.

The TeaSpot champions "Keepin' it Loose": taking the time to refresh, have fun and enliven with the simple luxury of a perfect cup of loose-leaf tea.

Just in case you didn't know, January is Hot Tea Month – so while you have a few days left, maybe it's your time to break out your gourd or pop open a bit of health elixir and see what all the hype is about. The lines at Starbucks will thank you.

Points and Prizes Keyword: BLACK worth 50 points good through 02/03/08.