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| Have tea ready and enjoy the moon cakes! This year the Mid-Autumn Festival (August 15th on lunar calendar) falls on September 22nd. It's equivalent to Thanksgiving in the spirit of celebrating harvest and family togetherness. The bright moon is a never ending subject for poets. Even though one is unable to be back home for reunion, the mutual longing would be delivered through the moon as a bridging medium. This is my favorite time of the year because of its poetic sentiment as well as the aromas of moon cakes in the air! With various choice of filling or type of dough for shell, the variety of moon cakes sourced from different regions of China is endless. Most are sweet pastes of beans, nuts and dates filled in a cake type of pastry shell. Cantonese are famously inventive for this variety of moon cake (an ingenious one includes salted duck egg yolk). "Shu Xian" (meaning "water fairy"), a lightly toasted oolong tea would be my choice to pair with Cantonese moon cakes. A savory moon cake favored by Suchow and Hongchow gourmets is made with either round or half-round puff pastry filled with ground pork and preserved shrimps. The"Dragon Well" green tea would be ideal to accompany this rich delicacy. |
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| Korean Drum Dancers I am sure each language has its own version of the popular Chinese phrase "Eyes are the Gate for your Soul". According to the informative video on cataract, most people will develop the problem sooner or later in the old age. Can you image the deprivation of being not able to distinguish the pink/red or the coming/going of the dancers in the above picture? Since tea catechins have been frequently quoted along with other antioxidant-rich foods, Vitamin A &C, phenolic compounds... for both general and eye health, I requested my old time college classmate Dr. Ing-ming Jeng (recently retired professor/researcher in biochemistry field) to clarify the overlapping and confusing terms for my understanding. He did a thorough research and untangled the terms from their structural and biological character viewpoints. His reply is truly worthy of at least 75% of my blog page instead of "one cent" as he jokingly subtitled in his reply. In order for the readers to share his scholarly insights, I decide to copy my question and his reply below. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ My request email dd July 27: Several friends and I attended an eye health presentation by a local specialist this past Saturday. For followup, I dug up my previous blog entry on the topic and shared with them http://joysoftea.blogspot.com/2010_04_01_archive.html. However, after a closer read, I found the questionable sentence in the linked article I included in the blog . I am concerned about the accuracy of the sentence in that report: "Catechins include vitamin C, vitamin E, lutein and zeaxanthin." ..... Dr. Jeng's reply dd Aug 16: I want to thank you for drawing my attention to Catechins and green tea. The subject matter is interesting and you convince me to drink more green tea. We actually went to our favorite Japanese restaurant and drank some green tea last night. I am slow in response as I tried to find the recent original publication online with no avail. I am not sure that you are aware of the fact that I am retired now. Therefore, I have no access to academic data-base. In short, I will give you my 2-cents (probably worth only 1 cent) from what I have learned online. I agree with your doubts about the statement's accuracy "Catechins include vitamin C, vitamin E, lutein and zeaxanthin." in the article.... It is incorrect and needs some clarification. I will give my best try below. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There are three overlapping terms: anti-oxidant, polyphenol compund and catechin. Polyphenols and catechins are defined structurally, and anti-oxidant is a functional defination. Catechins definitely do not include the 4 mentioned anti-oxidants. However, a close examination of the structure of four non-catechin anti-oxidants may tell you about their relationship with polyphenol compounds. A. A polyphenol antioxidant is a type of antioxidant containing a polyphenolic substructure. It is important to recognize that this is a chemical definition and several phenolic structures must be presented in the compounds to be called polyphenol. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphenol_antioxidant . Catechins belong to polyphenolic antioxidant compounds. B. Although vitamin C (ascorbic acid) is an anti-oxidant, it is not a polyphenol compound. It is derived from glucose and is devoid of any phenol structure. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_C C. Lutein does not have a phenolic group. Structurally, it is related to retinal or retinol. It has two hydroxyl groups that are linked (conjugated) to long string of conjugated double bonds so it is easily oxidizable. The structure contributes to its anti-oxidant property. Again, the compound is an anti-oxidant but is not a polyphenolic antioxidant. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutein D. Similarly, I probably would not call zeaxanthin a polyphenolic compound. Lutein and zeaxanthin have identical chemical formulas and are isomers, but they are not stereoisomers. The only difference between them is in the location of the double bond in one of the end rings. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeaxanthin |
