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August 25, 2025 43 mins

Step into the aromatic world of tea with John Snell, a 42-year veteran of the global tea industry whose journey spans from apprentice at UK's Lions Tettley Tea Company to international consultant. What began as an accidental career choice to avoid desk work evolved into a profound passion for tea "from bush to cup," fueled by witnessing firsthand how this humble leaf supports millions of livelihoods worldwide.

John unravels the fascinating distinctions between tea varieties, explaining how Camellia sinensis plants differ dramatically between China and India. The smaller-leafed Chinese variety thrives in higher latitudes with less sunlight, creating delicate teas perfect for green tea production. Meanwhile, the large-leafed Assam variety, evolved for hot, humid conditions, produces robust black teas packed with beneficial compounds. This botanical education extends to a masterclass on terroir – how regional growing conditions create distinctive flavour profiles as varied and complex as fine wines.

Perhaps most revealing is John's insight into how your supermarket tea has changed over decades. The carefully balanced blend of malty Assam, astringent Ceylon, and coppery East African teas that once defined a proper cup has given way to cost-cutting measures by major brands. Today's mass-market teas rely heavily on African sources, creating what John describes as "two-dimensional" flavour profiles. Yet there's hope in specialty tea's resurgence and the growing popularity of herbal "tisanes" like turmeric, raspberry leaf, and hibiscus that are repositioning tea in the wellness category.

Whether you're a casual tea drinker or aspiring connoisseur, this conversation will transform how you perceive what's in your cup. Subscribe now and join our journey to discover the fascinating world that exists under the canopy of nature's most beloved beverage.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
How did a small-town sheet metal mechanic come to
build one of Canada's mosticonic fishing lodges?
I'm your host, steve Nitzwicky,and you'll find out about that
and a whole lot more on theOutdoor Journal Radio Network's
newest podcast, diaries of aLodge Owner.
But this podcast will be morethan that.
Every week on Diaries of aLodge Owner, I'm going to

(00:25):
introduce you to a ton of greatpeople, share their stories of
our trials, tribulations andinspirations, learn and have
plenty of laughs along the way.
Meanwhile we're sitting therebobbing along trying to figure
out how to catch a bass and weboth decided one day we were
going to be on television doinga fishing show.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
My hands get sore a little bit when I'm reeling in
all those bass in the summertime, but that's might be for more
fishing than it was punching youso confidently.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
You said hey Pat, have you ever eaten a drum?
Find Diaries of a Lodge Ownernow on Spotify, apple Podcasts
or wherever you get your podcast.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
As the world gets louder and louder, the lessons
of our natural world becomeharder and harder to hear, but
they are still available tothose who know where to listen.
They are still available tothose who know where to listen.
I'm Jerry Ouellette and I washonoured to serve as Ontario's
Minister of Natural Resources.
However, my journey into thewoods didn't come from politics.

(01:34):
Rather, it came from my time inthe bush and a mushroom.
In 2015, I was introduced tothe birch-hungry fungus known as
chaga, a tree conch withcenturies of medicinal
applications used by Indigenouspeoples all over the globe.
After nearly a decade ofharvest, use, testimonials and

(02:01):
research, my skepticism hasfaded to obsession and I now
spend my life dedicated toimproving the lives of others
through natural means.
But that's not what the show isabout.
My pursuit of the strangemushroom and my passion for the
outdoors has brought me to theplaces and around the people
that are shaped by our naturalworld.
On Outdoor Journal Radio'sUnder the Canopy podcast, I'm

(02:22):
going to take you along with meto see the places, meet the
people that will help you findyour outdoor passion and help
you live a life close to natureand under the canopy.
So join me today for anothergreat episode and hopefully we
can inspire a few more people tolive their lives under the
canopy.

(02:42):
Live their lives under thecanopy Well, as always.
We want to thank our listenersall across Canada.
We really appreciate youlistening to us and the support.
You know it's always a big help.
If you're a listener, justclick subscribe, which helps us
out a lot.
And, of course, our listenersin the States and Switzerland

(03:02):
and Ghana I can't imagine Ghanais still listening as much as
they are, but I appreciate itand I'd like to know more why
but also in Trinidad and Tobagoand the Bahamas and all around
the world.
We very much appreciate all thesupport that we get.
Now, normally I give an updateon my Chocolate Lab, gunner, and
what's happening there andwhat's taking place, but I got

(03:23):
to tell you the past couple ofdays we had him up at the lake
and he spent a considerableamount of time in the water and
it happened with the same labthat we had before Strider.
He ends up with these hot spots, as I mentioned in the previous
podcast, and these hot spotsare a little bit irritating and

(03:44):
it's kind of a disgustinglooking open, sore, almost,
where it leaks a fluid of somekind.
We can't figure out what thatfluid is, but anyways, they put
him on antibiotics, and it seemsto help out, which he's been
doing now, and on hisantibiotics from no problem, but
he's developed a limp, and wedon't know why, and he gets a

(04:04):
little grumpy when you try tolook at his paws and his pads,
because you know it's a dog andhe doesn't know what you're
doing.
So you look at his foot to seeif there's anything there and
stuff like that, and he kind ofgrumbles, which is unusual.
When my wife goes to, when Dianegoes to work, and you tell him
she's going to work, he grabs atoy and runs and rolls on his

(04:25):
back and you'd think he wasgrowling at a biter, but he just
kind of grumbles anyway.
So every time we look so hetried to check out his pads and
things like that Can't reallytell.
We got a good look at it, butseemed to be okay, getting
better.
What that means, though, is I'mnot out doing my morning walk
to give updates on what ishappening with our living
apothecary and what's happeningout there, and I still am

(04:49):
enjoying that Merlin app andlistening with the bird sounds
and identifying all the birdsjust as we walk, and I'm amazed
at the number of different birdsthat I can identify just by
walking through the bush andlistening to the various birds.
But today we're moving forwardwith a new guest, and a new
guest is John Snell.

(05:09):
John, thanks for joining thepodcast.

Speaker 4 (05:12):
Pleasure Glad to be here.

Speaker 3 (05:14):
Yeah, john.
So we'll get into some of thedetails about some of your
expertise.
But tell us a bit about yourbackground, john.
Where are you from, or whereare you so our international
listeners kind of know from,toronto where you're from or
where you are now from, or whereyou so our international
listeners kind of know fromToronto where you're from or
where you are now, jerry.

Speaker 4 (05:28):
Well, I'm sitting here in Toronto, which has been
my home for the last 32 years,but originally from the UK, with
a brief spell as a kid growingup in West Africa.
So that's really yeah, so I'mreally really Canadian, but with
two passports.

Speaker 3 (05:46):
Very good.
So what part of West Africa didyou grow up?
It didn't happen to be Ghana,did it?

Speaker 4 (05:50):
No, it didn't.
It was Nigeria, which is aneighbor as good as and, yeah, a
delightful time there, abeautiful place to grow up in
central city Ibadan, which isstill dear to our hearts.

Speaker 3 (06:08):
Yeah, I spent some time and volunteered some time
in Nairobi, kenya, and thelifestyle there is very
different.
I mean the average house here Ilive in basically a
three-bedroom ranch bungalowthat was built in 1958.
And when we were visiting,because I was helping out with
the UN and working in KiberaActually it was a suburb of

(06:30):
Kibera, if you can have a suburbof Kibera.
Kibera, for those that don'tknow, is the largest slum in the
world where 1.4 million peoplelive in absolute poverty, and I
was in Legata helping out FatherMacarius there, but all the
houses there were surroundedwith 10-foot concrete walls with
barbed wire or electric fenceand glass, and it was just

(06:53):
basically a small bungalow aswell that the entire property
was surrounded with a 10-footwall with a concrete wall, with
glass or things like thatcemented in or placed on top,
and then electric or barbed wirefence above that and the entire
house is the property iscompletely surrounded with it

(07:15):
and that's just normal there andwhich kind of shocks you when
you're there and see these sortof things.
But it's it's.
It's interesting in in itselfand in learning the way
different cultures live, I mean,and to see the work that we
were doing there.
Once a day they turn on thewater where this facility that I
was helping in and the localscome to get their water and they

(07:36):
do their washing in the creekand clothes washing and things
like that in the creek.
But it was certainly a learningexperience that I think the
more that you people gainunderstanding of those things
that happen around the world isthe norm, the more they
appreciate the things that wehave here.
Yeah, so nigeria.
Much similar there.
What was happening there?

Speaker 4 (07:58):
you know, as I say, I was a kid there, um, but you
know africa's like, and when Isay Africa, the whole of Africa
is, I think given a bit of arough tilt, it's pretty similar
to here.
Honestly, you're right that ofcourse there are certain areas
where security is key, but,frankly speaking, the same could

(08:18):
be said of here.
People are the same throughoutthe world.
Just commerce is different andcommunities and connections are
different and therefore theopportunities provided to those
around the world vary.
But I would say that reallyfolks are just the same.
In fact, in my little teafactory here in well, just

(08:43):
outside Toronto, my help thereis Nigerian and I will say, the
most industrious, pleasant chapyou could not meet, which just
shows that we're all from thesame species.

Speaker 3 (08:57):
Yep, absolutely, it's understanding what takes these
sort of locations to the levelthey have, and you're right.
What takes these sort oflocations to the level they have
?
And you're right, you know, weall look at things in different
perspectives and, quite frankly,people coming here could see
the same things if they look forthose sort of things.
But, john, tell us a bit aboutyour expertise and why we

(09:18):
brought you on the program.
Where did you develop and howdid you develop it?

Speaker 4 (09:21):
And let us know, yeah well, I've been in the tea
industry for 42 years.
I dropped into the tea industryby accident after an early
career in the Royal Navy theGrey Funnel Line as it's
jokingly called and when I leftthe military service, I was

(09:44):
really looking for somethingthat was not a nine to five desk
job, and the Lions Tettley TeaCompany in the UK offered that
in terms of an apprenticeshipthat takes you all over the
world to different productionorigins to learn tea from bush
to cup, as we like to say, teafrom bush to cup, as we like to

(10:10):
say, and that it wasn't becauseI had a great desire to be in
tea, but that's what got me.
However, having spent time atOrigin, where tea is responsible
for employing millions ofpeople and therefore supporting
millions more, I just becametotally hooked, really, with the
social impact of tea, butobviously, uh, the liquor itself

(10:30):
is something that excites meeven to this day, despite the
fact that, obviously, if you saytea to people now, they will
think anything from black, green, white, oolong, chamomile,
peppermint, etc.
When I joined, the tea was whatI like to call the Henry Ford
of the industry, which was youcan have any color you like as
long as it's black, and it wasvery unidirectional.

(10:54):
But within black tea becausethat's all we tasted there are
infinite varieties.
You can taste terroirdifferences as strongly as you
would in wine and with maltyassams or astringent and citrusy
uvas and oedipus alawes fromSri Lanka or even a vanilla

(11:18):
character from Rwandans.
So yes, that's where I started.
I then moved from brandedcompanies through private label
manufacturing companies and thento the largest trading company
in the world, van Ries, a Dutchcompany, and that brought me
really over this way.
And from there I went back intoa private label world in

(11:43):
product development andeventually started my own
company and my own consultancywhere I do work for the United
Nations, fao and as well as packtea for my customers here.

Speaker 3 (11:55):
Very interesting.
When you talk about the variousblack teas and where they come
from and the different,basically, flavors, I guess
you'd say that come with theteas.
Where does the most popularblack tea come from, then?
That you would find in yourEarl Grey, shall we say, or
morning teas and things likethat.

Speaker 4 (12:17):
Well, it has changed.
And it's changed not becauseanyone has decided any consumer
has decided that they prefer teafrom one area or another, but
really because CPG, consumerpackaged good companies, the big
brands, have decided to movetheir buying from one area to
another because of price, whichis a real disappointment to me,

(12:42):
because it used to be that thepredominant teas that were found
in your normal cup of orangepico would be Assam from
northeast India, giving you thatlovely malty balanced cup.
It would be Sri Lankans, so fromwhat we call Ceylon teas, high

(13:02):
grown, giving you all that point, as we like to call it, if you
will, positive astringency orpositive bite and flavor, and
you would have some EastAfricans, kenya or Rwanda in
there which are just coppery,beautiful coppery cups with good
briskness and flavor.
These days you find that boththe Indians, who are basically

(13:25):
almost a net importer, now theydrink what they produce and more
.
And salons are too expensivefor the big brands, so they
really started buying a lot morefrom Africa, making it honestly
two-dimensional, and it's losta lot of tea's appeal and it's
only the growth in specialty tea, uh brands that has really

(13:48):
reinvigorated the interest inblack tea interesting.

Speaker 3 (13:51):
So you mentioned orange, orange pico.
What goes into an orange picotea?
Why is it called orange?

Speaker 4 (13:58):
just so people understand why they call it
orange pico yeah, well, it'squite funny because I will tell
you that in my days of packingtea I've had people complain
that their orange Pico didn'thave any orange in it.
Well, that's not the origin ofit at all.
Orange comes from the fact thatthe Royal Dutch household, the
House of Orange, used to well,one of the first importers of

(14:22):
tea into Europe from China, andPko is a quality notation, so
orange peko is the royalhousehold quality of tea, and so
actually all you get withorange peko is black tea.
If in the trade, orange peko orOP is purely a grade of leaf or

(14:50):
OP is purely a grade of leafand that means it is going to be
a long, twisted, well-twistedblack tea leaf somewhere between
, I'd say, three-quarters of aninch to almost an inch long, and
that would be OP.
And everything that is smallerthan that has a different grade
name, like FBOP, Fly, brokenorange, pecko, gbop, golden

(15:12):
blarry, broken orange, peko, gof, golden orange, fannings OF
orange fannings, et cetera, etcetera, until we get down to
dust grades.
But they all come from the sameplant, produced at the same
time.
So what you get in the tea bagor what looks like a beautiful
leaf actually have the samequality potential.

Speaker 3 (15:32):
And that leads to more questions, of course.
So what plants produce tealeaves?
And is it just plants?
Because I know if you addcinnamon to it, cinnamon is a
bark.
So what other sorts of parts ofplants?
I mean, we work together withdandelion root or chicory root
and things like that, but whatplant produces the average black

(15:55):
tea, shall we say?

Speaker 4 (15:56):
Yeah, so it's actually a camellia plant, a
beautiful flowering camelliaplant.
Camellia sinensis is the nameof it.
And then there are two distinctvarieties camellia sinensis,
variety sinensis, which, as thename suggests, comes from china,
and camellia and camelliasinensis variety asamica, coming

(16:17):
from asam, or which is really abit wrong, but still comes from
asam in northeast india.
The smaller leafed varietycomes from china.
You can imagine higherlatitudes, not such strong
sunlight, so it doesn't requiresuch a big photosynthetic engine
, if you will.
And the Assamica, grown in veryhot, humid conditions, has got

(16:39):
these huge, broad leaves, andthe difference between the two
of them in terms of what theycan make is that the Sinensis or
the Chinese variety is verygood for making green teas or
for making leaf teas, and theAssamica we're giving you lots
of guts, because it's this hugeengine that produces lots of
polyphenols is very good formaking good coloury, robust teas

(17:03):
.
So it's the main type which isused for tea bag manufacture.

Speaker 3 (17:06):
Very interesting for tea bag manufacture.
Very interesting.
So the green tea and the blacktea is from the same plant or
not?

Speaker 4 (17:17):
Same plant, different variety.
So the green tea normally comesfrom the Sinensis Sinensis, so
from the Chinese.
I'm going to just call themChinese and Assam varieties.
The Chinese variety will giveyou a softer profile.
If you make green tea out ofthe, out of the assam variety,
um, it usually comes out a bittoo bitter and people you know,

(17:39):
when they try green tea, becauseusually they've heard of its
health connotations, um, theymay turn away from it if it's a
little too astringent, which alot of Assam star greens are.

Speaker 3 (17:50):
Okay, so well.
You mentioned polyphenols andabout being in teas, because
polyphenols are very key andI've done a bit of research on
polyphenols in regards to theChaga product that I produce, in
that it has quite a bit ofpolyphenols that it gets out of
the birch trees and the birchbark itself, and the polyphenols

(18:11):
are kind of I think the bestway to describe it is as we, I
usually say, gain experience inlife we get these.
They call them liver spots, agespots and things like that and
essentially the polyphenols inour own skin and that start to
essentially wear out and it'ssort of like if you took an

(18:31):
apple and you peeled the appleand then exposed it to the sun,
it kind of turns brown.
That's because of theprotective coating.
The skin is no longer there,and that's what happens with a
lot of people.
And so if you increase yourpolyphenols, we find that it has
a tendency to assist ineliminating some of these age or

(18:51):
liver spots, whichever we'recalling them.
Now, I'm not sure if you knowmuch about polyphenols or not,
john, but that was some of thestuff I found out and you can
tell me I'm wrong, but that'ssome of the basics that I found
out about it.

Speaker 4 (19:04):
It's quite interesting.
I mean, I know a reasonableamount of polyphenols.
So polyphenols you'll find themin all plant material, but
there are some that are moreuseful than others.
So in the tea leaf itself.
It's quite funny.
Plants are fascinating thingsreally.

(19:25):
When a new bud on any bush buton a tea bush is there, it's
very soft and it's very supple,and so bugs love to eat it.
So the plant produces somethingwhich is very astringent and
not tasty to bugs to protect it,until it opens out into a leaf
and those things are catechins,or very small polyphenol if, if

(19:50):
you will, bits, as well ascaffeine, which is also bitter.
And as the leaf, uh, opens upand it transpires and it starts
to build, those things start tojoin together to produce other
fully fledged polyphenols, umand other complexes, and
eventually, as you go down anddown and down, they'll become

(20:11):
wood and lignin and everythingelse, the.
That is why, whenever you'reproducing anything, if you want
to get the health benefit, youwant to get the youngest part.
When you're talking about leaf,anyway, you want to get the
youngest part.
So when people see tea pluckersin a field, if they have seen a
video of it plucking the topleaves, that's because we're

(20:34):
trying to get that maximumpolyphenolic content.
To your point, jerry, about theapple, what's quite interesting
is that, when you get, thedifference between green teas
and black teas is purelyoxidation.
It's taking those catechins andit's exposing them to oxygen by
breaking the leaf open and theoxygen will join these things

(20:57):
together to produce the longerchain molecules that then absorb
more light blah, blah, blahchemical nonsense and or
physical nonsense and and absorbsome of the light spectrum so
that you see it as red.
So when you bite an apple andyou leave it there, what you're
seeing is you're seeing thathappening.
You're seeing catechins beingoxidized, producing polyphenols

(21:19):
that absorb and reflect out thered part of the spectrum.
So those are the largerpolyphenols.
That's the simplest way ofdescribing it.

Speaker 3 (21:30):
Yeah, it's difficult to try and put things into a
podcast.
That's the simplest way ofdescribing it.
Yeah, it's difficult to try andput things into a podcast in
terms that make it quicklyunderstandable without going
into great depth about, you know, the betulin and betulinic acid
that's brought in by birch barkand things like that.
But I find it very interesting.
I know I did spend some time inSri Lanka as well and they sold

(21:53):
different grades of tea, whichwas the gold leaf or the silver,
and the gold were the youngestones and I'm assuming from what
I'm hearing here has the highestconcentration of catechins and
polyphenols in it.

Speaker 4 (22:10):
You're right.
So the gold and silver partsthat you see sometimes in a leaf
are the unopened leaf bud.
So that is the youngest bud andit produces, and so it doesn't
have the chlorophyll yet.
So therefore it doesn't comeout as green as a green leaf.

(22:34):
And so these are the thingsthat tell you that it's been
plucked from the top of the bush.
It doesn't necessarily, it'snot necessary.
You know, you can have a blackleaf that has been plucked from
the top too, because what a lotof producers will do is that
some of that gold tip, as wecall it, or silver tip is so

(22:57):
valuable that they will pluckthe leaf and then they will
separate out the tip from theleaf and they will sell the tip
separately, or they will use theamount of tip that they get
over a larger quantity of blacktea because it's so expensive.

Speaker 3 (23:14):
so, um, you can still get a good tea even if it
doesn't look silver or gold, soto speak so, john, I'm trying
trying to visualize what a teain regards to the, I guess what
we're talking about a tea plant,the ones that you mentioned
look like.
Is it like a bush, or is itlike a tree, or is it like what

(23:34):
does it look like offhand?
I don't even know.

Speaker 4 (23:36):
Yeah, so the camellia , if you let it grow in the wild
it will grow to 10 meters high.
It's a fully-fleshed tree, butobviously that would make it
very hard to harvest the leaves,though there are some places,
like in Yunnan, there are someplaces in southwest China, where
people climb ladders into thetrees, the old trees, to plant

(23:59):
the leaves, but what generallyhappens is these trees are
planted in rows and they arespecially pruned to produce a
flat table, if you will.
Basically a single stem, a bitlike a wine glass, a single
trunk that then blossoms outinto this wide array of branches

(24:24):
that will look just like a redwine glass, and that what you're
trying to do is maximize theamount of leaf that can be that
can be got at by direct sunlightand rain.
So when you look at a tea field,it just looks like a green
carpet, but the pluckers canwalk between these because

(24:44):
actually there's quite a bit ofspace between the trunks itself
and pluck these leaves and yes,so you can tell and the height
of these is kept to a level thatis comfortable for the
indigenous pluckers to pluck.
So, for instance, what we callthe table height, which is the

(25:05):
height of the bushes isdifferent in Kenya than it would
be in Vietnam because theworkers in Vietnam are shorter
than the workers in Kenya.
So the height is kept to alevel which makes it easy for
the tea plucker to pluck a levelwhich makes it easy for the tea

(25:27):
plucker to pluck.
So what is indicative of theaverage height of the workers in
different origins is the heightof the plucking table that they
keep it to.
So, for instance, in Kenya theplucking table height is higher
than that in Vietnam because thepeople are taller.

Speaker 3 (25:42):
Right.
So, and if it's taller, then Iimagine they have more leaf
capacity for the plant to beable to harvest.

Speaker 4 (25:50):
Well, you can get the same amount of leaf if you will
table surface area from ashorter bush.
But in reality, is the factthat the Sinensis Sinensis, or
the Chinese variety, which isgrown throughout Vietnam, china,

(26:10):
indonesia, etc.
Actually has a lower yield thanthe Assam variety, which is
grown predominantly in India andAfrica, right?
So, yes, the yields are quitedifferent, in fact.

Speaker 1 (26:34):
Hi everybody.
I'm Angelo Viola and I'm PeteBowman.
Now you might know us as thehosts of Canada's Favorite
Fishing Show, but now we'rehosting a podcast.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
That's right.
Every Thursday, ange and I willbe right here in your ears
bringing you a brand new episodeof Outdoor Journal Radio.

Speaker 1 (26:50):
Now, what are we going to talk about for two
hours every week?

Speaker 2 (26:53):
Well, you know there's going to be a lot of
fishing.

Speaker 6 (26:55):
I knew exactly where those fish were going to be and
how to catch them, and they wereeasy to catch.

Speaker 1 (27:00):
Yeah, but it's not just a fishing show.
We're going to be talking topeople from all facets of the
outdoors, from athletes, All theother guys would go golfing Me
and Garton Turk and all theRussians would go fishing To
scientists.

Speaker 2 (27:14):
But now that we're reforesting and letting things
breathe.

Speaker 6 (27:16):
It's the perfect transmission environment for
life.

Speaker 5 (27:19):
To chefs If any game isn't cooked properly, marinated
, you will taste it.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
And whoever else will pick up the phone Wherever you
are.

Speaker 1 (27:29):
Outdoor Journal Radio seeks to answer the questions
and tell the stories of allthose who enjoy being outside.

Speaker 2 (27:35):
Find us on Spotify, apple Podcasts or wherever you
get your podcasts.

Speaker 3 (27:45):
And now it's time for another testimonial for Chaga
Health and Wellness.
Okay, we've got Rob fromHamilton here, who's had some
success with the Chaga cream.
Rob, can you tell us about it?

Speaker 7 (27:57):
Yeah, I've used it on blemishes, cuts, just basically
all around healing.
I've used it on blemishes, cuts, just basically all around
healing, anything kind ofblemish.
It speeds it up really quick.
Great, it speeds the healingprocess up really well.
It leaves no marks and doesn'tstain.
It smells okay.

Speaker 3 (28:17):
Okay, thanks, rob, appreciate that.
You're welcome.
We interrupt this program tobring you a special offer from
Chaga Health Wellness.
If you've listened this far andyou're still wondering about
this strange mushroom that Ikeep talking about and whether

(28:40):
you would benefit from it or not, I may have something of
interest to you.
To thank you for listening tothe show, I'm going to make
trying Chaga that much easier bygiving you a dollar off all our
Chaga products at checkout.
All you have to do is head overto our website,
chagahealthandwellnesscom, placea few items in the cart and

(29:01):
check out with the code canopyC-A-N-O-P-Y.
If you're new to Chaga, I'dhighly recommend the regular
Chaga tea.
This comes with 15 tea bags perpackage and each bag gives you
around five or six cups of tea.
Hey, thanks for listening Backto the episode.

(29:23):
One thing, john I get a lot ofpeople coming to me and asking
me.
They ask me for the.
They want the mushroom coffee,and some of the difficulty is is
with the Chaga.
Every time that I put a newline out, a SKU line out, within
a couple of weeks mycompetitors come up with it.
So I had something which Icalled Chaga coffee and

(29:44):
essentially all it was wasorganic coffee mixed with
grounds of the Chaga.
But I show people how to getbetter value and just getting
the grounds doing their own.
So a lot of my customers comeup with mushroom coffee and I
asked people.
I said, okay, what does thatmean?
Does that mean you're mixing itwith coffee or does that mean

(30:05):
they don't know?
So in the same sense, john,what I'm leading to is what
makes a tea a tea and a coffee acoffee.

Speaker 4 (30:12):
You don't doubt the plant species from which it
comes.
I don't think you know.
It's quite funny.
I don't think you can messaround with the descriptions of
species.
Though tea in the lexicon ofthe public has been released to
include herbals etc.
Whereas we would call herbals,ie those infusions made from

(30:39):
botanical species other thancamellia, made from botanical
species other than Camelliasinensis and obviously other
described botanicals such ascoffee, cocoa or some malt
drinks.
We would call those tisanes,and they are basically
caffeine-free and do not carrythe same health benefit as those
coming from the plant Camelliasinensis, which is tea.

(31:00):
And coffee, without a doubt,comes from two particular
species of plant, but both ofthem are cafés.
They both produce the same bean.
When people talk about mushroomcoffee, all they're really doing
by putting coffee, bysuffocating it with coffee, is
they are talking to the largesthot beverage consumer group in

(31:32):
North America.
So they are trying to.
You know, if they just said, oh, this is hot mushroom, I don't
know a hot mushroom beveragethey would not attract the same
interest by calling it coffee.
So whether it's got and some ofthem do have coffee in them,
but the majority of mushroomcoffees do not, they are just,

(31:54):
um, you know, mushrooms have thethe.
They have the same brown notes,if you will, of coffee and they
look a bit like coffee.
They don't taste like coffee.
But yes, if you want thosebenefits from certain mushrooms
and you're currently a coffeedrinker and you may be thinking

(32:14):
about cutting down on yourcaffeine intake, et cetera, et
cetera, then I can ascribe tocalling mushroom infusions
mushroom coffee.

Speaker 3 (32:25):
Yeah.
So it took me a while to get ablend and I think you know what
I utilize is the chaga, ofcourse, roasted chicory root and
roasted dandelion root as acoffee substitute.
And I explained to people whocome in and they want the
mushroom coffee and I said, well, this is a coffee substitute.
And I explained to people comein and they want the mushroom
coffee and I said, well, this isa coffee substitute.

(32:46):
Essentially, there's nocaffeine and people are
gravitating it toward verynicely, but it's understanding
what the public want and givingthem.
There's a lot of people come inand they don't really know what
they're asking for, because ifit's well, I guess it'd just be
advertising and promotion ofcertain ideals that these people

(33:08):
believe is the way to go, butit's.
I find it very interesting.
So what are some?
Obviously, the these black teasthe one you mentioned can't
grow in Ontario and Canada atall.

Speaker 4 (33:23):
No, no, they can't.
They couldn't take the winterat all.
There's a little bit of teaproduction in British Columbia
and there are quite a fewsmaller states in the US with
one particularly largeplantation, relatively in

(33:45):
Charleston or just outsideCharleston, madualoa Island.
But really you know the tropicsof the place.
It requires abundant rainfallwe're talking 2,000, 2,500
millimeters a year and it wantsto be in temperatures really
between 20 and 30 Celsius mostof the time and it will not

(34:11):
tolerate frost very well.
Chinese variety can, and thereare some special hybrids
actually that were designed bythe Russians to plant out what
is now the Republic of Georgia,and they have some what they
call snow varieties which arefabulous, fabulous quality

(34:35):
deliverers.
But of course their yield islow Because, like anything you
know, the thing that gives youquality in a bush is one
dormancy, ie a period when itdoesn't grow and the plant wants
to concentrate sugars into itsroots as a store during a winter

(34:56):
dormancy, and then slow growth.
Slow growth, not too muchuptake of water.
It's the same with grapes.
It's the same with grapes, it'sthe same with tea, it's the
same for any plant.
The best quality comes fromthose slow growth post-dormancy
periods.

Speaker 3 (35:13):
Well, but, as you mentioned, a lot of the herbal
teas are now becoming verypopular.
The raspberry, which I imagineis the leaf, is utilized for
raspberry, or what are some ofthe other ones that are very
popular?
The raspberry, which I imagineis the leaf, is utilized for
raspberry, or what are some ofthe other ones that are very
popular?

Speaker 4 (35:27):
So yeah, so obviously , chamomile.
Chamomile has been a staple, sohas mint, both peppermint and
spearmint Depends, if you likethat softer, earthier mint, or
whether you like your bubble gumor toothpaste.
You know, experiment if youwill.
Hibiscus is exceptionallypopular, you know.

(35:48):
It gives you that nice red rubycharacter, nice tart, sort of
anything from cherry throughsort of plum notes, depending on
the origin, the dry of theorigin, Egypt, sudan, very
cherryish, but Nigeria or China,more plummy if you will, more
humidity growing there.
And then all the spices.

(36:09):
We see them in chai and we seethem separately cinnamon, clove,
nutmeg, you know they're allthere.
And then newer ones to the foreare things like turmeric.
And newer ones to the fore arethings like turmeric.
Turmeric, particularlyactivated by black pepper,
together and the purpurinebrings out that curcumin, for

(36:34):
that anti-inflammatory isbecoming quite a thing.
And you mentioned raspberryleaf.
Raspberry leaf has really hitthe heights, as has dandelion,
milk, thistle, nettle.
You know, you can go on and on,but those are all you know, big
movers in what's becoming moreand more a health and wellness

(36:56):
category rather than a teacategory.

Speaker 3 (37:00):
So you mentioned the plum.
Now is it the leaves or is itthe fruit that is utilized for
that sort of and the same, Iguess, would it be for, like
black blueberries?
You know, I've dehydratedblueberries and made them into a
tea, but do they utilize leaves, or is it just the fruit part

(37:21):
that they use?

Speaker 4 (37:22):
Yeah, sorry with tea, but do they utilize leaves or
is it just the, the fruit part,that they use?
Yeah, sorry, that was uh.
Maybe I was uh not meaning plumitself.
I was saying that that was theflavor you get from hibiscus is
stretches from, depending on the, depending on the dryness.
I either sort of cherry to plum, but you're right regarding you
know, we know that any purpleor any purple colored coloration

(37:45):
in plants is due to apolyphenolic mix, which is very
good for you.
So you know, grape skins,blueberries, plums, they're all
exceptional, exceptional for you.
But I hasten to add, becauseI'm a tea guy, that there is

(38:08):
irrefutable evidence that tea isactually this tea from Camellia
Senances is a more potentpolyphenolic provider than
blueberries, red wine orchocolate, and so I think I'm in
the right place.

Speaker 3 (38:26):
Okay, well, so, as I mentioned, is it just the
blueberries or they use theleaves from blueberry plants as
well?

Speaker 4 (38:36):
So they do use leaf both from blueberry and
blackberry, but really it's thefruit.
You know, the fruit in the skin, you know, dried, is the
predominant thing.
The other thing, jerry, thatyou know we have to consider
when we're producing new blendsis whether we can actually

(38:58):
manufacture it.
Manufacture it, you know, it'sall very well saying, oh, I'd
love to, you know, I don't knowhave just the pollen from
chamomile, which is the sweetestpart.
But if you but the trouble withthe pollen is, one is it's rare
and expensive, but two is it'svery fluffy and has no density,
it's sort of fly away.
And so try to machine that, ifyou want to get it into a teabag

(39:22):
or even into a loose packet, isvery, very difficult.
So there are some things thatmechanized packing and blending
just cannot manage.
And then we have to considerthat, yes, we may like the leaf

(39:42):
of a particular plant and theberry of another and the bark of
another, but because they aredifferent densities they won't
blend together, or at least youcan blend them, but they'll fall
out of blend very easily, sothat when the consumer gets the
pack, the thing that will be onthe top will be the lightest,
fluffiest stuff, and as they godown they'll that will be on the

(40:04):
top will be the lightest,fluffiest stuff, and as they go
down they'll get different cupsall the way down.
So we have to manage consumerexpectations and desires with
that which is practical andactually, in the end, something
that will perform satisfactorilyfor them.

Speaker 3 (40:21):
Well, raspberry though.
They use raspberry leaves, dothey not?

Speaker 4 (40:30):
They use raspberry leaves.
But there's a funny thingRaspberry leaf is.
Again.
It looks like something thatyou might pull out of an old
fashioned pillow.
Frankly, it's very.
It's got this white bloom to itand it's very spongy and and
sticks together in balls andvery difficult to manage.
Now how do you cope with that?
Well, you can hand fill it.
But what a lot of people aredoing now, a lot of the

(40:52):
producers.
They're actually taking thatand they're grinding this down
and then they granulate it sothat they can produce a good
density, regular sized particlethat can be packed by anyone and
still maintain the same healthbenefits.

(41:12):
Right Well?

Speaker 3 (41:14):
I have to tell you I found it very, very interesting.
How can people find out moreinformation about tea and
details and the benefits and allthose sorts of things?
Where would you suggest thatthey look for that kind of
information?

Speaker 4 (41:26):
well, I think that a really good place to start would
be the tea and herbalassociation of canada, thac.
That is always a great place tostart.
They have good sources to lookup and I would say, because
Google has reduced the planet toa second, you can look up the

(41:50):
UK Tea Association too.
They're also a great source forlearning about teas.
But hey, in this day of elbowsout, the Canadian Tea and Herbal
Association is a very goodplace to start.
Shabnam Weber that runs it isalways willing to educate people

(42:12):
in that regard.

Speaker 3 (42:14):
Well, thank you, john .
We really appreciate you takingthe time to inform us and
enlighten us about all the teasand the backgrounds and all that
.
It's just something a littlebit different that happens out
there under the canopy.
Thanks a lot, john, Iappreciate that.

Speaker 4 (42:28):
Well, thanks, Jerry, and I'll see you with some chaga
soon.
Oh, very good, John.
Thank you Okay.

Speaker 6 (42:53):
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database of muskie anglingeducation material anywhere in
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Speaker 5 (43:01):
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amazing community and share itwith passionate anglers just
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Speaker 6 (43:08):
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Speaker 5 (43:15):
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embrace the thrill of the catchwith the Ugly Pike podcast.
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Speaker 6 (43:29):
The Ugly Pike Podcast isn't just about fishing.
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