Midnight Magic

If you’ve ever wandered into a popular coffee shop on a rainy afternoon, you’re sure to have heard someone ordering and some barista announcing the preparation of a caramel latte. These relatively simple drinks have become one of the mainstays of popular culture, yet the massive pilings of milk and sugar offer relatively little in the way of health benefits. What is so attractive about them, then? Quite simply: flavor.

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There are many legends surrounding the origin of drinking tea. One story tells us that it began in China thousands of years ago. It is said that the leaves of a Camellia plant dropped off and landed in a bowl of boiling water. The Emperor at the time tasted the result and found them to his liking and the art of drinking tea was born.

A professional scientific study led by molecular biologist Professor Gilles-Eric Seralini and carried out at Caen University in France has found startling results when feeding rats a diet of exclusively GM (Genetically Modified) corn (NK603). The study has been reviewed by independent scientists to gurantee that the experiments were properly conducted, and that the results are valid. The study was published in the US journal Food and Chemical Toxicology on September 18th, 2012.

As much as we’d like it to be true, tea didn’t start growing in our backyard in Toronto—we had to get it here somehow! Ok, so we didn’t really pay attention in seventh-grade geography, but when there’s tea involved, we’re interested. Sit back with a cup of green and read a little history with us….

If you’re a fan of the London Fog, or Earl Grey tea latte, try this seasonal twist for spring and summer. It’s like an iced London Fog, but with cold froth/foam on top. Before you stir, the cold froth sits on top of the tea, looking a bit like clouds, while infusing your iced tea latte with creaminess.

Of course, we cannot blame you if you’ve made the same mistake as many and assumed that Orange Pekoe is a flavor of tea. Something about it just sounds exotic and delicious, doesn’t it? But we’re here to tell you that that’s actually not the case: Orange Pekoe is in fact a grade of tea, a way to tell how good one tea is from the other based on the leaves themselves.

The seasonality of Darjeeling tea, described as flushes, bring out different flavor from the tea that is picked from the same plants during different times of the year.