Tea Leaf Green Tribute Clarence Clemons At The Stone Pony

06/22/2011
.(Conqueroo) This past Sunday Tea Leaf Green performed at the fabled Stone Pony bar and frequent home of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band in what became a tribute concert for legendary saxophonist Clarence Clemons.

Springsteen and Clemons met at the Asbury Park bar in 1971, a story both men have told onstage for the past 40 years. Clemons, 69, the "Big Man" in Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, died Saturday night.

Fans who came to pay respects were given free admission to evening headliners Tea Leaf Green who showed love and admiration for Clemons. "It was an honor to pay tribute to 'The Big Man' at our last show on this leg of the tour," said guitarist/vocalist Josh Clark. "We saw firsthand how much Asbury Park and the Stone Pony loved him. We listened to him play all day in the van on our way down there."

Fellow band member Trevor Garrod added, "When we found out Clarence had died we where still a few hours from Asbury Park. It was a beautiful day; the sun was setting into a riot of crimson clouds; flowers and chalk drawings lined the sidewalk outside of the club. The Atlantic Ocean's waves rolled calmly in across the street. Though we where only coming through coincidentally, we nonetheless felt honored to be part of the celebration of this great musician's life. We couldn't help but feel that somehow the universe was encouraging us to keep up this tradition of rock 'n roll. After we played our set, I jumped into the moonlit sea with some kids who had come to watch the show. I couldn't help but wonder if, back in the day, Clarence had ever done the same. He will be missed."

San Francisco Bay Area troubadours Tea Leaf Green are newfangled Lost Boys, a traveling gang dedicated to seeking wisdom and experience in places both glorious and seedy. The band's summer tour kicks off on July 2 in Colorado on the heels of its seventh studio album, Radio Tragedy!, freshly released through Thirty Tigers.

In many ways, this quintet is the essence of rock's adventurous, playfully outlaw spirit, all of which ultimately fuels songs that resonate with classic vibrations, open-ended possibilities and radio-ready charm. With Radio Tragedy!, Tea Leaf Green have made a record that's both timely and timeless - a strange, beautiful space that they inhabit naturally and gracefully.

TEA LEAF GREEN Summer tour dates 2011

Sat., July 2 SNOWMASS VILLAGE, CO The ECO Music Festival
Sun., July 10 DETROIT, MI St. Andrews Hall
Mon., July 11 COLUMBUS, OH Newport Music Hall
Tues., July 12 GRAND RAPIDS, MI The Intersection
Wed., July 13 INDIANAPOLIS, IN Egyptian Room at Murat Theater
Thurs., July 14 DAVENPORT, IA The Redstone Room
Fri., July 15 MILWAUKEE, WI Shank Hall
Sat., July 16 MINNEAPOLIS, MN Cabooze On West Bank
Sat., July 23 BRIDGEPORT, CT Gathering of the Vibes
Tues., July 26 SPOKANE, WA Knitting Factory
Wed., July 27 VANCOUVER, WA Commodore Ballroom
Thurs., July 28 PORTLAND, OR Oregon Zoo Amphitheatre
Fri., July 29 BELLINGHAM, WA Wild Buffalo
Sat., July 30 SEATTLE, WA Neptune Theatre
Sun., July 31 EUGENE, OR W.O.W. Hall
Mon., Aug. 1 RENO, NV Grand Sierra Theatre
Wed., Aug. 3 LOS ANGELES, CA Club Nokia
Thurs., Aug. 4 VENTURA, CA Majestic Ventura Theatre
Fri., Aug. 5 PIONEERTOWN, CA Pappy & Harriet's Palace
Sat., Aug. 6 LAS VEGAS, NV Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
Sun., Aug. 7 SAN DIEGO, CA Humphrey's Concerts by Bay
Tues., Aug. 9 ANAHEIM, CA The Grove of Anaheim
Wed., Aug. 10 TEMPE, AZ Marquee Theatre
Mon., Sept. 5 BETHLEHEM, PA SteelJam Festival
Fri., Sept. 30 SAN FRANCISCO, CA The Independent
Sat., Oct. 1 SAN FRANCISCO, CA The Independent

 

antiMUSIC News featured on RockNews.info and Yahoo News.

...end

. . . . . .

View the original article here

Japan: green tea exports banned due to high radiation levels

A swathe of Japan's tea making regions including parts of Tochigi, Chiba and Kanagawa prefecture as well as the whole of Ibaraki were included within the ban, according to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.

Green tea plantations were first highlighted as suffering from potential radiation contamination last month following the results of sample tests in Kanagawa prefecture.

The authorities discovered around 570 becquerels of caesium per kilogram in leaves grown in the city of Minamiashigara – compared to the legal limit of 500 – and started a recall of tea products.

Tea leaves are the latest agricultural products in Japan to be affected by problems surrounding the still-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

From milk to spinach, a raft of items have fallen under the spotlight due to radiation fears although Japanese authorities have assured the public and its export nations that it is strictly regulating products.

Tens of thousands of farmers have been hit hard by the nuclear crisis, due to issues surrounding potential soil contamination and food safety fears with many also having had to abandon their animals in the evacuation area.

View the original article here

Fukushima fallout spurs bans on green tea

An aerial view of the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.Radioactive cesium levels prompt new action by JapanGreen tea, plums are among the latest bansTokyo Electric hopes to wind down the crisis by January

Tokyo (CNN) -- Japan has slapped new restrictions on green tea and plums from areas around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant because of lingering radioactive contamination from the ongoing disaster there.

The latest government bans were prompted by the discovery of radioactive cesium-137 and -134 at concentrations higher than Japanese standards allow, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano told reporters Thursday.

Both are nuclear waste products: cesium-137 has a half-life of 30 years, while cesium-134 has a two-year half-life.

The government has now forbidden the shipment of both fresh and dried green tea -- normally touted for its health benefits -- from Ibaraki Prefecture, southwest of the plant; from six towns in Chiba Prefecture and six towns in Kanagawa Prefecture, near Tokyo; and two in Fukushima Prefecture, where the crippled plant is located.

In addition, Edano said, the government has banned the shipment of plums from three towns in Fukushima.

The moves come nearly three months into the crisis at Fukushima Daiichi, the worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. One of three operating reactors at the plant melted down after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, and the other two suffered extensive damage to their radioactive cores.

Though no deaths have been attributed to the accident, the resulting contamination has forced authorities to evacuate more than 100,000 people from towns surrounding the plant. In addition, restrictions on various agricultural and fisheries products have devastated Japanese farmers and fishermen since the disaster began, though some of those bans have been lifted in recent weeks.

The plant's owner, the Tokyo Electric Power Co., has laid out a timetable for restoring normal cooling systems and fully shutting down the reactors by January. But Prime Minister Naoto Kan cautioned that people may not be allowed to return home immediately, "even if these prospects are realized."

"We might have to continue monitoring, and we need to maybe decontaminate," said Kan, whose government survived a no-confidence vote Thursday spurred by complaints about his handling of the twin crises. "And for that, there may be some more time needed."

The disaster has spurred Japan to rethink its commitment to nuclear energy and tighten safety standards for existing plants. A preliminary report from the International Atomic Energy Agency concluded this week that Japan underestimated the risks its nuclear installations faced from tsunamis, like the one that swamped the Fukushima Daiichi plant and knocked out its cooling systems.

But the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency declared the country's response to the disaster "exemplary," praising Tokyo Electric's operators for their "brave and sometimes novel" efforts to contain the crisis.

CNN's Junko Ogura contributed to this report.

View the original article here

Compound in green tea benefits health

CORVALLIS, Ore., June 4 (UPI) -- A compound in green tea has a powerful ability to increase the number of "regulatory T cells" that play a key role in immune function, U.S. researchers say.

Principal investigator Emily Ho of the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University says that may be one of the underlying mechanisms that make green tea beneficial in helping control inflammation, improve immune function and prevent cancer.

Pharmaceutical drugs perform similar roles and have been the subject of much research, scientists say, but they have problems with toxicity, Ho says.

"This appears to be a natural, plant-derived compound that can affect the number of regulatory T cells, and in the process improve immune function," Ho says in a statement. "When fully understood, this could provide an easy and safe way to help control autoimmune problems and address various diseases."

In the study, the scientists experimented with a compound in green tea -- a polyphenol called EGCG -- which is believed to be responsible for much of its health benefits and has both anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer characteristics.

The study, published in Immunology Letters, found the compound could cause a higher production of regulatory T cells and while its effects were not as potent as produced by prescription drugs it also had few concerns about long-term use or toxicity.

"EGCG may have health benefits through an epigenetic mechanism, meaning we aren't changing the underlying DNA codes, but just influencing what gets expressed, what cells get turned on," Ho says.

View the original article here

Japan restricts green tea over radiation fears

Skip to navigation ? Skip to content ?

TOKYO (AFP) – Japan banned the shipment of green tea leaves grown in four prefectures around Tokyo on Thursday after radioactive caesium above legal levels was found in samples, a media report said.

It was the latest produce shipment ban since the massive March 11 seabed quake and tsunami crippled the Fukushima nuclear plant northeast of Tokyo, which has since leaked radiation into the ground, air and sea.

The ban covers tea leaves from parts of the Tochigi, Chiba and Kanagawa prefectures and all of Ibaraki prefecture, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare said, Kyodo News agency reported.

Kanagawa, southwest of Tokyo, said in early May it had detected radiation above the legal limit in tea grown there and blamed it on the stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant, which suffered partial meltdowns.

Kanagawa prefecture then started a recall of the tea after measuring about 570 becquerels of caesium per kilogramme in leaves grown in the city of Minamiashigara. The legal limit is 500 Bq/kg.

The Fukushima Daiichi plant is located some 220 kilometres (135 miles) northeast of Tokyo and 280 kilometres from Minamiashigara.

The central government has previously imposed a ban on a range of vegetables and dairy produce from parts of Fukushima prefecture and several neighbouring regions, and banned fishing in the vicinity of the plant.

Copyright c 2011 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agence France Presse.

View the original article here

Japan may face green tea shortage due to radiation leakes from Fukushima plant

The government decided on Thursday to curb shipments of dried tea leaves containing more than 500 becquerel per kg of radioactive cesium.var AddOthers = document.getElementById("yahoobuzzsyn").innerHTML;var msgparent = '8721471'; var _obj=document.getElementById("reportAbuseDiv"); var y = findPosY(_obj); window.onscroll=setabuseForm;var facebooklink=document.location.href;function callPublish(msg, attachment) {FB.ui( { method: 'stream.publish', message: msg, attachment: { media: [{ type: "image", href: facebooklink, src: fb_Img }], name: facebookktitle, caption: 'economictimes.indiatimes.com', description: facebooksyn, href: facebooklink }, user_message_prompt: "What's on your mind?" }, function(response) { if (response && response.post_id) { } else { } } );}var share = { method: 'stream.share', u: 'http://economictimes.indiatimes.com' }; FB.ui(share, function(response) { console.log(response); });function blockError(){return true;} window.onerror = blockError; var timeslog_channel_url = 'economictimes.indiatimes.com';var ttrendlogmsid='8721471'; var usersessionkey=""; FB.init({appId: '47255beefd20a79f1f2e244087a0dcc7', status: true, cookie: true, xfbml: true}); function getSessionFB(){ FB.getLoginStatus(function(response) { if (response.session) { session = response.session; sessionkey=session.session_key; usersessionkey=sessionkey; } else { } }); } setTimeout("getSessionFB()",2000); function openSignin(paramChk){try {var fbtwtUrl="";if(paramChk=="1"){fbtwtUrl="http://socialappsintegrator.indiatimes.com/socialsite/OAuth?channel=et";}else {fbtwtUrl="http://socialappsintegrator.indiatimes.com/socialsite/PostComment?action=sign-in";}sigintwtfb = window.open (fbtwtUrl,"sigintwtfb","location=1,status=1,scrollbars=0,width=700,height=500");sigintwtfb.moveTo(275,275);}catch(ex){}}

View the original article here

Drinking green tea in Newcastle

Drinking green tea in Newcastle
03 Jun 2011 

I SPENT three days in Newcastle last week researching a story on the challenges facing the clothing and textile industry in the area. This involved interviewing several owners of cut, make and trim factories, all of them Chinese immigrants. Such meetings also meant drinking copious amounts of green tea, the beverage of choice among the Chinese. Green tea is well known for its sleep-denying properties, but given the amount I drank, I’m surprised I didn’t start seeing monkeys.

Green tea’s propensities for wakefulness go back to one of the legends related to the discovery of tea. This is the story of Bodhidharma, a bearded Indian monk who is said to have taken Buddhism to China in the sixth century CE. After a fruitless meeting with the emperor, Bodhidharma went off to meditate in a cave on Mount Sung close to the Shaolin Temple — yes, the kung fu one. There he spent nine years in meditation facing the cave wall. At some point Bodhidharma got a bit drowsy and, annoyed at this backsliding and in a bid to stay awake, he tore off his eyelids and threw them to the ground. Where they landed tea bushes grew.

Bodhidharma later became acknowledged as the founding patriarch of the school of Buddhism in China known as Chan. It was later exported to Japan where it became known as Zen. Chan or Zen, both words simply mean meditation. The story of Bodhidharma’s eyelids could well be a story composed, in hindsight, to explain the practice of Zen Buddhist monks who resort to drinking green tea to banish sleepiness during overnight meditation sessions.

Tea and meditation are often interlinked. In his book Road to Heaven, the writer and translator, Bill Porter, recounts his trips to the Chungnan Mountains in central China to find out if any Buddhist hermits managed to survive the depredations of the Cultural Revolution and were still practising in their mountain hideaways.

Porter visited various mountains where hermits — male and female — had been known to live in the past. Some mountains had not only lost their hermits, but also the forests that once grew upon their slopes. Arriving at a mountain and finding that its forest had been harvested, Porter deduced that hermits would be in short supply: “There was hardly a tree in sight. I reasoned no forest, no deadfall; no deadfall, no firewood; no firewood, no tea; no tea, no meditation; no meditation; no hermits.”

And the monkeys? There is a ghost story by the 19th-century Anglo-Irish writer Sheridan Le Fanu, titled Green Tea. It is about an academic clergyman “the Reverend Mr Jennings”, who is immersed in a work “upon the religious metaphysics of the ancients”. To aid his concentration he resorted to tea: “It cleared and intensified the power of thought ... and it became a habit with me to sip my tea — green tea — every now and then as my work proceeded.”

After a while, the reverend gentlemen begins to be plagued by the unwanted attentions of a monkey. A creature he alone can see. Eventually he is driven insane and commits suicide.

The reader is informed that the unfortunate scholar had fallen victim to the hallucinatory qualities of green tea consumed in large quantities. Monkeys, apparently, being the pink elephants of overindulgence in the beverage.

Hence my relief, given the quantities of green tea consumed, that I saw no monkeys during my visit to Newcastle.

var onl = window.onload;window.onload = function(){if (onl){onl();}if (window.XMLHttpRequest) {var req = new XMLHttpRequest();} else if (window.ActiveXObject) {var req = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");}var url = "index.php?class=bb_page_comments&method=public_form&global[fields][where]=bb_content&global[fields][order]=62073&global[noincludes]=rawtext";req.open("GET", url, true);req.onreadystatechange = function() {if (req.readyState == 4) {var html = req.responseText;document.getElementById("page_comments").innerHTML = html;}}req.send(null);}

View the original article here

Enterprise tea company touts benefits of Green tea

 Kyomi Koike of Enterprise believes food is medicine and has been building a business called Sei Me Tea, which markets Edible Green, a ground green tea that can be brewed as tea or used in foods as an herb. JOYCE OSTERLOH / The Observer

ENTERPRISE — Millions of health-conscious consumers drink tea. In fact, it is second only to water as the most widely consumed beverage in the world.

Many Americans brew their teas from bags of black, oolong or green tea leaves in hot water, a method that may yield only a tiny fraction of the healthy components in green tea.

Sei Mee Tea in Enterprise offers Edible Green, a tea made from whole green tea leaves ground to a fine powder that can be added to hot water in the familiar way or added to foods as an herb.

Sei Mee Tea, pronounced “Say Me Tea,’’ is a family business founded by Kiyomi Koike, who believes strongly that, “food is medicine.”

Kiyomi’s journey began several years ago when her husband, Bill, was diagnosed with cancer and given only a 50 percent chance of survival. With a 3-month-old baby and a toddler, Kiyomi was determined to do whatever she could to improve Bill’s chances. As a native of Japan, she knew well the medicinal qualities of green tea and urged him to drink 10 cups a day, the amount green tea advocates say is needed to get the healthy benefits. Kiyomi said she was quite disappointed when Bill told her he would rather die than drink the bitter-tasting tea, especially in the quantity she suggested.

Thus began her intense research to find a better way to provide the medicinal healing properties of green tea. She found Edible Green, a powder made from Sencha tea leaves and imported from Japan where it has been grown by certified organic farmers for more than 30 years. According to scientific studies at the University of Colorado, Sencha tea leaves contain the highest amounts of antioxidants among all green teas and less caffeine than the traditional matcha variety of tea, used in Japanese tea ceremonies.

According to Kiyomi’s research, Sencha tasted better and was more versatile than other green teas and, best of all, it was agreeable to her husband. He followed the regimen, and after using the tea for five years, his oncologist told him he was cancer free. That was in 2005. Today he’s still cancer free — and still drinking green tea.

Antioxidants, present in high quantities in the Sencha tea, neutralize free radicals in the body, which scientists suggest are responsible for cell damage, and may contribute to the aging process, heart disease and the occurrence of cancer.

For consumers who wish to limit the amount of caffeine they use, choosing Edible Green Decaf is not a compromise, Kiyomi said. Because of the decaffeination process of most other decaf green teas, most of the water-soluble antioxidants, vitamins and minerals is removed along with the caffeine. With Edible Green, the user consumes the whole tea leaves, not a diluted brew, and 95 percent of the antioxidants are preserved in the patented water process decaffeination, according to product information on the Edible Green website.

To maintain a healthy immune system, Kiyomi recommends two servings of Edible Green a day. One quarter teaspoon of the bright green powder constitutes a serving and can be ingested as a hot or cold drink or mixed with food as a dietary supplement.

For individuals battling a chronic disease, Dr. Paul Reilly, a naturopathic oncologist and director of naturopathic medicine at the Seattle Cancer Treatment and Wellness Center, and Dr. Dan Ostermiller at the Integrative Medicine Clinic at St. Luke’s Hospital in McCall, Idaho, recommend six servings a day, two hours apart. It is advised to consult with a doctor if an individual is taking prescribed medications.

Recipes that use Edible Green can be found on the company website, http://www.groundgreentea.com and include many possibilities such as Dave’s Biker Friendly Green Tea. It uses equal parts Edible Green green tea, apple juice and orange juice mixed well, over ice. This is a particularly smart choice, Kiyomi said, since the vitamin C in apple and orange juice enhances the antioxidant activity in the tea leaf powder.

A green tea smoothie can be made from one cup soy milk, one fourth teaspoon Edible Green, one tablespoon each coconut milk and sugar and a half cup crushed ice, well blended. Other recipes found on the website include Green Tea Chocolate Turtles, Green Tea Cheese Cake, Rosemary and Green Tea Cookies as well as dips and spreads on snack crackers and soup recipes.

Kiyomi said the organic farms that grow the Sencha tea are situated near Osaka, Japan, in the south part of the islands. The jet stream has not carried the contaminating effects of the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant that was damaged in the recent earthquake to Osaka. She has been closely monitoring the conditions of the damaged plant, she said, and the updates are available on the website. In addition, she explained that the tea-growing season is from May to October so the tea she is using now was grown before the earthquake.

Edible Green is imported in bulk and then packaged and shipped with the help of two part-time employees to fill orders from hundreds of cities throughout the U.S. Kiyomi said 15 percent of the company’s dealers are professional health practitioners.

Edible Green is available in La Grande at Bella, Nature’s Pantry and from Denise Leidy ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ). In Baker City it can be found at Bella, and in Pendleton at the Great Pacific Wine and Coffee Co. It is available in Enterprise from Flying Cloud Gifts, Ruby Peak Naturals, Gypsy Java and the Dollar Stretcher. In Joseph, Sei Mee Tea is available at Anton’s Home and Hearth, Bronze Antler B & B, Mt. Joseph Family Foods and Wildflour Bakery, and in Wallowa at the Blonde Strawberry.

View the original article here