Tea began as a medicine and grew into a beverage
~ Kakuzo Okakura, Book of Tea
'We can imagine that, before the advent of civilization, with all its familiar trappings of pyrotechnology and pottery, tea leaves (which are quite bitter) would not have been nibbled on for recreation. Likely they would have been used only occasionally in small amounts, for the purposes of harnessing their intensely concentrated medicinal properties. Only later, as Okakura ruminated, would tea be consumed regularly in the form of a drinkable infusion.
The beauty of tea's transition from a medicine to a beverage is that drinking tea in small amounts daily, may prevent the need for using 'heroic' megadoses of green tea at any time later in life after a serious disease sets in. Food (and beverage) is medicine, assuredly, but it is best used preventively – in small, hopefully enjoyable, doses -- before a problem digs in its roots.'
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