Lesson Plans for Hot Tea Month
Learn about the History of Tea and the Health Benefits of Tea
Nov 20, 2008
Snuggling up with a glass of hot tea in January is the perfect way to relax. The benefits of tea, though, go far beyond simple relaxation. Herbal tea and Chinese tea customs have a long history. Tea recipes can be simple or complex and tea time is a tradition embraced by many cultures. So for educational purposes, sit down with a cup of tea and enjoy learning tea time lore in the classroom or homeschool.
Benefits of Tea
In an article entitled “How Green Tea can Combat Cancer” in the March 20th, 2004 edition of New Scientist Magazine, researcher Dr Hirofumi Tachibana and his team at Kyushu University in Japan discuss their findings that the components in green tea can inhibit the growth of cancerous cells. Since then, green tea supplements have been developed and become popular, as anti-cancer drugs.
Discuss the mental health benefits associated with the ritual of relaxing with a cup of tea. Perhaps your children have heard of tea time in England. Imagine being in the habit of settling down in the middle of each afternoon to enjoy sipping tea with friends. Share tea recipes and ideas. Try having tea time in your house each day during National Hot Tea Month.
History of Tea
Tea is an ancient tradition in the East. Steeping fresh, dried or fermented leaves in hot water has been part of the Asian culture for many years. In Germany, wassail is a hot spiced punch that is an important part of winter holiday traditions. It has been said that hot tea aids digestion, and because of that, hot tea is served at every meal in some cultures. Tea was such an important part of life for the early American settlers that, in order to be sure that every citizen was paying his share of taxes, England's King levied the tea imports. Read about the Boston Tea Party to integrate American History into your homeschool lessons for National Hot Tea Month.
Herbal Tea
Many tea purists claim that wassail and herbal tea are not really tea, because they're not made from the leaves of the tea bush. Real or not, herbal teas are generally caffeine free infusions of herbs, spices and sometimes flowers. These tea recipes are reputed to carry the medicinal benefits of the plants they're derived from. In fact, for thousands of years, medicinal herb teas were commonly prescribed by doctors and healers to combat a wide variety of ailments.
In the US, since all pharmaceutical products must undergo strict and expensive research and analysis in order to claim their healing properties, herbal medicine has gone out of fashion. Unlike pharmaceutical drugs, no one has a vested financial interest in promoting the legitimacy of herbal products, and other alternative health and medicine practices, so they have not been subject to the intense amounts of documentation that allows them to be “approved by the FDA.”
National Hot Tea Month
How can you use National Hot Tea Month in your curriculum? Whether you're researching the legitimacy of herbal tea claims, studying the history of tea drinking in various cultures, testing tea recipes in your home kitchen, implementing a daily tea time or enjoying a winter wassail with friends, National Hot Tea Month is a great theme for your unit study, a timely way to teach history and social studies through the lens of hot tea.
