Joel Marshall: Hello, thanks for joining us today. My name is Joel Marshall. I am with Tumalo Tea Company.

A recent study showed that drinking tea is one of the best things you can drink besides water. And so, we started drinking tea ourselves. So, we had five acres here in Oregon, in Central Oregon, and started growing flowers. Essentially, we grew flowers for bees for their health benefit. But those flowers, most of those desert flowers, chamomile and lavender; pot marigold, calendula, which it's called also, those are all great flowers that grow in the desert, but also have incredible health benefits. But a lot of people don't know about the basics of tea. So, we'll talk a little bit about that today.

Specifically, we're talking about the benefits of loose leaf tea. You know, what is the difference? If you don't know about tea, tea essentially, at least tea in its formal name, comes from the same plant, whether it's black tea, oolong tea, green tea, white tea, pu'erh. Those all come from the same plant, Camilla sinensis, but they are just processed differently. And we'll talk a little bit about that.

But before we even get there, it's how they process those leaves. If you're going to use a tea bag, that's called dust and fanning, those are dust particles from the plant and it's not the best beneficial way to drink tea. It's a convenient way, but it is not the best way, nor is it necessarily the cheapest way or least expensive way. The other way is broken loose leaf tea, which is a little bit higher quality than dusting and fanning. And you've probably seen those tea bags that come in a little pyramid thing, and that isn't crushing the leaves quite as bad. But the very best way to drink tea, of course, is loose leaf tea or whole leaf tea. And usually, you can find that at the store in bulk or from specialty retailers. It might come in a bag or a tin. But loose leaf tea is better for you, and your wallet. And it's even better for the environment because you aren't using all those packages. And the nice thing about loose leaf tea is you are able to usually steep once, twice and sometimes three times to get the full benefit out of the same amount of tea. So, that's the basic three different ways of consuming tea.

But then, let's talk about the benefits. Well, tea itself, as I said, all tea, black tea, green tea, white tea, pu-erh, oolong, they all come from the same plant. But herbal teas, which technically aren't teas at all, they go by the name tisane, T-I-S-A-N-E. They are using all the different plants from all over the world, quite literally, and many of them can be foraged right in your own backyard, that have so many great benefits.

So, I want to talk a little bit about herbal tea, which is mostly what we do as a farm. And I want to talk about how they're beneficial for you. Herbal teas contain a couple things. Well, all tea, because of plants have a high level of antioxidants. In fact, usually the darker the plant, the higher the level of antioxidants. And green tea, among the tea itself, along with oolong, tend to have-- and even white tea, higher than black tea-- more nutrients because the black tea has been oxidized more and so it's lost a little bit of its benefit, but it's still very good for you. But green tea is definitely richer in polyphenols than black or oolong teas. But they all have about the same levels overall. So, no matter what tea you're going to choose, you're going to get some benefit from it.

There's a lot of studies that show the benefits of the tea. For me personally, I'll tell you the teas that I drink every day. One of them is chamomile. Chamomile, we drink a chamomile and a lavender tea with rose hips, which is rose hips add vitamin C, very high in vitamin C, great for your skin. But chamomile contains chemicals, which a lot of plants, most plants do, called flavonoids. These flavonoids are types of nutrients that are present in most plants and they play a significant role in chamomile's medicinal effects. We actually add the chamomile, like I said, to lavender, and both of those plants are anti-anxiety, anti-spasmodic. Chamomile itself encourages sleep and rest, if you want a more natural rest remedy. But it also is good for a lot of different issues. Studies show that it may help in managing menstrual pain, sleep problems, a whole bunch of great things. Obviously, headaches, pain, it helps block some pain receptors. So for most people, chamomile, tea is safe to try. I would say with all of this, if you're taking other medications, make sure that you talk to your doctor about interactions. Hibiscus is the other tea that I drink a whole bunch of. In fact, I drink pretty close to about a half gallon a day, which is about all that they say that you should drink because it is so powerful and so good for you.

But if you're looking for a better drink to add to your daily routine I would highly encourage you to drink tea and consider different teas. And talk to your doctor, and maybe your doctor might even have suggestions of what teas might be beneficial for you.

But we all live in a pretty stressful world, so I would encourage you pick up some chamomile and just chill out. It's great cold or hot. And we love taking tea and making it into lemonades in the summer. A nice way to get the tea and a chamomile lavender lemonade, pretty easy to make.

So anyway, I want to thank you for joining us today. And I hope that you will find your way to drink yourself better. But if you're looking for tea, obviously, I'm Joel with Tumulo Tea. You can find us at tumalotea.com, T-U-M-A-L-O-T-E-A.com, or you can find us on Instagram and Facebook. But I just want to thank you again for joining us. And I hope that you will find a way to drink yourself better. I'm Joel. Thank you so much. Have a great day.