General – Page 7 – Before Wisdom

The Weight Of Green Tea

I do not know anything about tea.

People who know a lot about green tea told me that I could get a lot better tasting green tea by ordering it directly from Asia.

That is partially because unlike black tea, green tea is a “perishable” product. Time, exposure to air and exposure to light degrades the quality of green tea. Appreciating tea can get as complex as appreciating wine. The green tea cognoscenti I conversed with told me that Asian tea farmers have the advantage of centuries of experience and the right kind of environment. Many of the Asian companies that ship green tea directly to customers refrigerate their tea after harvesting it, and then air mail the tea in vacuum packed envelopes.

I ordered a “green tea beginner’s kit” from one such Japanese company ( yes, Japanese tea has been tested by disinterested parties to be safe from radiation poisoning ). I ordered the cheapest of this better quality tea, “Sakura Sencha”, $6.76 for 50 grams ( about 1.8 ounces ). This tea is of high enough quality that you can use each serving of tea leaves 3 times. I also selected a fancy Japanese airtight tea jar and an 8 fluid ounce clay pot especially designed for making Japanese green tea.

When I finally got it all, the instructions on the tea envelope called for using 0.6 grams of tea per ounce of water. I knew that “a cup” is 8 fluid ounces. No problems there, but I had no idea how many grams of tea an American tea spoon holds. I wasn’t about to weigh out tea leaves every single time I wanted to drink tea, so I asked for an approximation on a web board devoted to tea aficionados. I got answers all over the map.

Enter the new scale:

According to wiki.answers.com a U.S. Quarter weighs 5.67 grams. This is where my directly out of box new scale is started from:

I had the intuition that shape matters. The Sakura Sencha green tea leaves are rolled into linear shapes and a round teaspoon may not fit as much as an oblong teaspoon. I did 3 weighings, one per each of these differently shaped teaspoons:

I started off with the cheapo, battered, round, white plastic teaspoon I use at work, where I do most of my tea drinking:

I got 1.72 grams per teaspoon:

Next, I moved on to a round steel teaspoon with a wider bowl:

I got 1.85 grams per teaspoon:

Finally, I moved on to a steel teaspoon with an oblong shape bowl:

I got the highest weight, with the widest teaspoon, at 1.93 grams per teaspoon:

So, to make a cup ( 8 fluid ounces ) of Sankura Sencha Green Tea using 0.6 grams of tea leaves per 1 fluid ounce of water, I would need 4.8 grams of tea leaves.

Dividing that by the 1.72 grams per my cheapo plastic work teaspoon I get 2.79 teaspoons.

That sounds about right. Before I got the scale I found 3 cheapo plastic teaspoons to be slightly too strong and 2 of those teaspoons to be just about right.

HTH

Noise

How to reduce unwanted noise is a question many people have these days.

There are many common issues ranging from the noisey coworker in the cube farm spoiling your concentration, to the immature neighbors without full time day-jobs keeping you up at night.

This short post will be about the best noise reductions options I have found so far.

The not-so-great news, and the bottom line, is that a reduction of about 30 decibels is the best noise reduction you are going to get with easy options.

Noise reduction products generally fall into two distinct groups: passive and non-passive. Passive products are things like ear plugs and ear muffs. Other products like ear phones may use powered technology to reduce, block or attenuate noise.

A coworker of mine introduced me to the Bose® QuietComfort® 15 Acoustic Noise Cancelling® Headphones:

Cost? About $300.

My coworker let me try them out in our noisey office. I found that the passive Pro Ears Ultra 33 worked about the same for me.

Cost? About $35.

After I bought Pro Ears. I repeated my test at the office trying those on, trying on my coworkers fancy electronic thing and trying out drug store ear plugs during someone’s conference call on speaker phone. They all seemed about equally effective for me. The Pro Ears Ultra 33 had the advantage of being easy to put on/take off and did not involve stuffing things in my ears.

Since I can’t sleep on my back remaining 100% still for a full night, I found myself returning to ear plugs to compensate for those noisey neighbors without day-jobs. Googling around, I couldn’t find any objective information on what made one ear plug more desirable than another. The best I got were comments like

“Try these! They are the best!”

Then I found “The Sound of Silence Sussing out the ear-plug market.” by Ulrich Boser on slate.com. The author methodically tested a large number of ear plugs for several different qualities, assigned a score for each quality and then gave each ear plug an overall score. It is the closest thing I found to an objective review of ear plugs on the internet.

Lastly, there is the Ear Plug Super Store, a family owned business that specializes in selling everything that will reduce, block or attenuate noise. There is a lot of useful information on the site and their knowledgeable customer service will gladly answer any questions you have about what the right product is for you to get.

Remember, parole for a life sentence on a murder charge is about 30 years. Tempting as it may be, homicide is the lesser option to one of these products, moving or finding another job.

HTH!

Christmas Music Tyranny

I like a lot of Christmas music. I think it is best enjoyed a week before Christmas. In my area there are several radio stations that start playing Christmas music 24/7, at Thanksgiving. A full month before Christmas.

I wrote to one station I had on the presets in my car radio.

They told me that it was a money maker for them. Many area stores set their stereos to play their station exclusively during the Christmas shopping season.

Okay, that is bad enough, but now there are some radio stations in my area still playing Christmas music, though Christmas has ended. I’m guessing it will run through New Years Day.

Ironically, the content of those songs often have nothing do with commemorating Christ or Christianity. The bulk of the songs are about the trappings of Yule, an ancient European pagan holiday. “Christmas trees”, misletoe, etc.

Next year, when someone complains about the “war on Christmas” that person, IMHO, should be asked:

Do you plan to spend Christmas day in church?
Do you plan to join the crowds on Black Friday, shoving other people for a piece of plastic crap from China, in the spirit of Christ?
Have you read the entire Bible? If not, do you plan to start on Christmas?

Okay, I am ranting, but *ENOUGH* with the Christmas music already. Christmas is over.