Are you more of coffee or tea drinker? It’s not too difficult to guess which one I prefer considering what Essential Brew offers. I’ll choose tea over coffee anytime.

To put the debate into perspective, here’s an interesting article on the benefits of drinking tea vs coffee (The Coffee vs. Tea Smackdown). Seems like both tea and coffee drinkers derive health benefits from their daily fix of caffeine but tea wins overall(score: 7 vs 3). Of course we cannot avoid the fact that having too much caffeine can be bad for you too (Caffeine Overuse), but I don’t really drink that much to the point of dependency and addiction so I should be quite safe. =) Historically, tea has also been drunk as a medicinal beverage so while I’m getting my daily dosage of caffeine, I might as well get the maximum benefits out of it.

By having my cup of tea, I’m also sharing the passion with billions of other people around the world as tea is the second most popular beverage in the world. Guess which is the most popular beverage?(click to find out but no prizes for guessing correctly =P) Almost everywhere around the world be it England, India, Sri Lanka, China, Japan etc have their local versions of tea being enjoyed daily and its prevalence round the world is no doubt partly due to its long history. According to Chinese legend, Emperor Shen Nung who was known as a scholar and botanist, discovered tea in 2737 B.C. when some tea leaves fell into his boiling water. Comparatively, coffee has a much shorter history dating back to around 800 A.D.

The culture of tea preparation makes it perfect for a relaxed get together with friends or family. Avid tea enthusiast do not solely enjoy the taste of the beverage but also enjoy the process of brewing tea. Personally, I find the process of the chinese tea ceremony therapeutic, as it forces one to slow down the pace and relaxes one’s mind. Time just seems to pass by more slowly and melt away all my stress when I have a good chat with friends while brewing a pot of good tea. In contrast, brewing coffee is a much less elaborate and more straight forward process.

Yeah, I might seem a bit bias choosing tea over coffee, but no doubt with the above in mind, tea is a more appealing beverage to me as compared to coffee(although i still have the occasional round of coffee). Over at Essential Brew, we’ve made the process of enjoying a good pot of tea a much simpler and easier process for those people who are intimidated by the intricacies of a traditional chinese tea ceremony. So what’s stopping you from being a tea convert given its innate attractiveness?

Hmm, it’s interesting how a little irritation from spammers can actually help us learn more php coding! So hope you guys don’t mind the image verification thinggy yeah!

Haha, so enough of the little crawlies coming over and dropping off their links to sites offering little blue pills and fresh hot… err, you get the drift! (We wouldn’t mind if they were talking about our food)

Got an sms last week from an old friend of 9 years! Wow, its been a while… So popped by Caldecott Hill on Mon afternoon for a little afternoon tea and daydreaming… well, that’s actually the name of Peifen’s show: 下午茶，白日梦

Thought she used to do the late-night shows but it seems there’s just been a change of shift. I understand how it feels having to work till 2am! Haha, but well, as long as 933 listeners enjoy and our patrons at EB enjoy themselves too, it’s all worth it yeah!

Oh, seems like Peifen was actually right when she said we ‘cook‘ and ‘stew‘ tea apart from brewing it, coz our food does actually come done with tea, like the Jasmine Cod Fillet and the Grilled Dory with Oolong Sauce - hence the ’stewed’ bit!

We had a great time reminiscing over old times in college and updating on what each other and our friends are doing now in their lives. Not to forget recalling and talking about the experiences during which EB started.

Anyway, thanks to Peifen for inviting me over to the studio for the interview and for coming by to visit Essential Brew after the interview. It’s been great catching up with Jiahui too (aargh, we missed recording the interview you did with us a year back!) and nice meeting Chong Qing too (Thanks for supporting us over the years and hosting some shows there too!)

Listen to the interview here:

Just an email I got in my mailbox. Thought I’ll share with all of you! =P

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25 Reasons Why You Should Start Drinking Green Tea Now

Green tea has increasingly become a very popular drink worldwide because of its immensely powerful health benefits. It is extraordinarily amazing what green tea can do for your health. And if you’re not drinking 3 to 4 cups of green tea today, you’re definitely NOT doing your health a big favor.

Here Are The 25 Reasons Why You Should Start Drinking Green Tea Right Now:

1. Green Tea and Cancer

Green tea helps reduce the risk of cancer. The antioxidant in green tea is 100 times more effective than vitamin C and 25 times better than vitamin E. This helps your body at protecting cells from damage believed to be linked to cancer.

2. Green Tea and Heart Disease

Green tea helps prevent heart disease and stroke by lowering the level of cholesterol. Even after the heart attack, it prevents cell deaths and speeds up the recovery of heart cells.

3. Green Tea and Anti-Aging

Green tea contains antioxidant known as polyphenols which fight against free radicals. What this means it helps you fight against aging and promotes longevity.

4. Green Tea and Weight Loss

Green tea helps with your body weight loss. Green tea burns fat and boosts your metabolism rate naturally. It can help you burn up to 70 calories in just one day. That translates to 7 pounds in one year.

5. Green Tea and Skin

Antioxidant in green tea protects the skin from the harmful effects of free radicals, which cause wrinkling and skin aging. Green tea also helps fight against skin cancer.

6. Green Tea and Arthritis

Green tea can help prevent and reduce the risk of rheumatoid arthritis. Green tea
has benefit for your health as it protects the cartilage by blocking the enzyme
that destroys cartilage.

7. Green Tea and Bones

The very key to this is high fluoride content found in green tea. It helps keep your bones strong. If you drink green tea every day, this will help you preserve your bone density.

8. Green Tea and Cholesterol

Green tea can help lower cholesterol level. It also improves the ratio of good cholesterol to bad cholesterol, by reducing bad cholesterol level.

9. Green Tea and Obesity

Green tea prevents obesity by stopping the movement of glucose in fat cells. If you are on a healthy diet, exercise regularly and drink green tea, it is unlikely you’ll be obese.

10. Green Tea and Diabetes

Green tea improves lipid and glucose metabolisms, prevents sharp increases in blood sugar level, and balances your metabolism rate.

11. Green Tea and Alzheimer’s

Green tea helps boost your memory. And although there’s no cure for Alzheimer’s, it helps slow the process of reduced acetylcholine in the brain, which leads to Alzheimer’s.

12. Green Tea and Parkinson’s

Antioxidants in green tea helps prevent against cell damage in the brain, which could cause Parkinson’s. People drinking green tea also are less likely to progress with Parkinson’s.

13. Green Tea and Liver Disease

Green tea helps prevent transplant failure in people with liver failure. Researches showed that green tea destroys harmful free radicals in fatty livers.

14. Green Tea and High Blood Pressure

Green tea helps prevent high blood pressure. Drinking green tea helps keep your blood pressure down by repressing angiotensin, which leads to high blood pressure.

15. Green Tea and Food Poisoning

Catechin found in green tea can kill bacteria which causes food poisoning and kills the toxins produced by those bacteria.

16. Green Tea and Blood Sugar

Blood sugar tends to increase with age, but polyphenols and polysaccharides in green tea help lower your blood sugar level.

17. Green Tea and Immunity

Polyphenols and flavenoids found in green tea help boost your immune system, making your health stronger in fighting against infections.

18. Green Tea and Cold and Flu

Green tea prevents you from getting a cold or flu. Vitamin C in green tea helps you treat the flu and the common cold.

19. Green Tea and Asthma

Theophylline in green tea relaxes the muscles which support the bronchial tubes, reducing the severity of asthma.

20. Green Tea and Ear Infection

Green tea helps with ear infection problem. For natural ear cleaning, soak a cutton ball in green tea and clean the infected ear.

21. Green Tea and Herpes

Green tea increases the effectiveness of topical interferon treatment of herpes. First green tea compress is applied, and then let the skin dry before the interferon treatment.

22. Green Tea and Tooth Decay

Green tea destroys bacteria and viruses that cause many dental diseases. It also slows the growth of bacteria which leads to bad breath.

23. Green Tea and Stress

L-theanine, which is a kind of amino acids in green tea, can help relieve stress and anxiety

24. Green Tea and Allergies

EGCG found in green tea relieves allergies. So, if you have allergies, you should really consider drinking green tea.

25. Green Tea and HIV

Scientists in Japanhave found that EGCG (Epigallocatechin Gallate) in green tea can stop HIV from binding to healthy immune cells. What this means is that green tea can help stop the HIV virus from spreading.

Now, your health is in your hands. You know you’re smart. So, start drinking three to four cups of green tea every day for a drug-free and healthier YOU!

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Ain’t I glad that green tea is one of my favourite thirst quenchers?

We’d thought we’d share a bit on our cozy little haven at Holland Village…
This isn’t a commercial (or even commercially produced) but just a warm and friendly clip brought to you by the EB familie!

It might take a short while to load but it’ll sure be fun! Pop by our place and watch it with your friends if you need a fast WiFi connection, that’s free of course!

Do leave a rating for the video or leave some comments yeah!

Enjoy!

Last year, we ran our Finger Food Combo promotion and found it was quite popular… So since we’ve received numerous requests and even on our tagboard recently to make an offer for students, we decided to bring this back!

Hey, did you realize something? The picture shows a basket of Fried Chicken Wings, Smiley Fries and Calamari Rings…
but how come there’s no Smiley Fries offered as part of the combo set?!

Oh no! Yes, we know those cute little guys really put a smiley on some of your faces but where have they gone?

Well, seems like there seems to be a shortage or (outage for that matter) of the Smiley Fries in Singapore at the moment! Oh NoOooOoo! Ok, dun fret! We’re trying to get them back as soon as we can yeah… will keep you guys posted…

Speaking of which, I recall some time a year back just before we started serving the Smileys… Our chef prepared a basket of them and told one of our cooks:
“Ok, now we’ll be serving these Smiley Fries on our menu. I want you to slice the potatoes into round discs 1cm thick and use a drink straw to make 2 circles for the eyes and a knife to cut out the mouth. Understand?”

“Wah, really? Ok I’ll try…” replied the cook

…while the rest of us tried to keep a straight face without laughing!

Oh, you didn’t actually think that was how we made it, did you? Well, if the stocks don’t come in soon, we might actually have to! Just that they’ll probably come in all shapes, sizes and looks… =) ;~) :~| =/ :} ;\ haha, ok enough already… hope that put a smile on your face!

Remember to check out our Students’ Special Finger Food Combo…
offering 1-for-1 drinks and Free WiFi Access!

Why did we choose to start our first outlet at Holland Village of all places? This is a question that we have been posed countless times, so I guess this will be a good subject for this post for all those people who are still wondering.

First of all, we have to go back in time when the concept of EB was still on the drawing board. When we first came up with the idea of a tea-themed cafe, the basic idea revolved around bite-sized finger food that can complement and go well with the finest selection of teas we can find. We wanted our own little haven where unlike any other conventional restaurants, customers will be able to kick off their shoes, drink and dine relaxed in a cozy setting. Having been to many tea houses during our tea appreciation days, we were also inspired by the traditional tea house setting, where we get to brew and enjoy tea on low height tables. Thus, the concept of a cozy and comfortable modern tea house was finalized but we needed to find a suitable place to bring our idea to fruition. After countless visits to various locations including various orchard road areas, serangoon gardens etc, we chanced upon the holland v unit and fell in love with it.

The rest, as you can see, is history.

Holland village itself has its own charm and appealed greatly to us as well. It is a self-contained village where you can basically do anything, from buying groceries , meeting friends, shopping in the many unique shops located at Holland village shopping centre and of course to settle down for a good meal at the many cafes and restaurants here. The “bohemian enclave” of Singapore, it is a good balance of old and new and a perfect fit for our idea of a modern version of a traditional chinese tea house.

Its laid back feel attracts throngs of people to congregate here to meet up for meals or drinks thus we felt that there is no better place to introduce our tea-infused food and drinks to masses.

That sums up how we got about being in Holland V. Do drop by if you are at Holland V and check out the place!

Yes, we’re offering a 20% off our Plateau Serenade ice cream bombe so everyone can come and enjoy it before it runs out around June 2007… eek!

Plateau Serenade ~ Ingenious mix of Hazelnut & Macadamia ice cream made into an ice cream bombe with an added nutty crunch and a hidden surprise!

Yes, we know the Plateau Serenade is an all-time favorite and we’ve asked New Zealand Naturals not to stop shipping the Hazelnut Crunch ice cream!

However, it seems that demand for the Hazelnut Crunch is considered low around Asia as compared to other more mainstream flavors like Chocolate Ecstasy or Strawberry Surprise perhaps. Hence, it gets struck off… =(

We’ve even made a request to bring in the ice cream specially by commiting to order a certain number of boxes per year since so many friends of EB love the flavor and this dessert!

Well, we can only hope for the best and if you’d like to support the Hazelnut Crunch flavor, drop us a comment!

…but in the meantime, let’s indulge! mMmmMmmm…

more details on our Dining Promotions page!