BOOK REVIEW: The Ultimate Tea Diet

       The Ultimate Tea Diet by Mark "Dr. Tea" Ukra
 

I volunteered to review this book titled The Ultimate Tea Diet written by a self-proclaimed Tea Guru who calls himself DR. Tea. 

When I first saw the book I liked the bright orange color, that's the color without the sleeve on since I don't like to read hardbacks with sleeves so as not to crease them, I remove them, and was nicely surprised by the cheerful and bright orange.  Then I casually flipped the pages for pictures [my favorites] and was sadly disappointed to not see any pictures with their bright colors and hues in the entire book.  The most color was the "mustard" [sorry I know it should be a light orange but my eyes don't see it that way]  colored testimonies from other people who had weight problems and had tried every diet in the world and didn't lose weight until they tried the Ultimate Tea Diet.

So, reluctantly I kept to my promise of reading and reviewing but frankly my heart was not in it, since it had no pictures. Then it suddenly dawned on me that I was acting like a child and if I was going to give this book a fair shake, then I better start acting like a professional adult that I am, so with a self-deprecating chuckle, I settled down in my bed and opened the book expecting something very clinical and borrrrrring.  Again, the book pleasantly surprised me. It was anything but boring and peaked my curiosity with the first page, not an easy thing for a book to do, being a true bookaholic, but this book really did.

For starters the author Dr. Tea aka: Mark Ukra, has a very plesent style of writing, almost like he's sitting right there next to you sipping tea and talking to you like you're old pals, and I like that. He also interjects humor and reality in between facts and that makes for easy and light reading which I like too, because it shows a funny side of someone who although is speaking about a serious topic, can laugh at himself and not take life too seriously....or at least less stressfully.  Maybe it's all that calming effect in tea that keeps him that way.  I found myself chuckling at his injecting in of the word "Tea" every chance he got like when he spoke of the "test-TEA-monials", of the "TEAmmate Profile" or even when he titled his first chapter as "What's TEA Got to Do With It", a play on Tina Turners song "What's Love Got to Do With It", and anyone who likes Tina Turner enough to think of her when they title a chapter in their book, is A-OK in mine.

I also like that the book TEACHES us something in just about every page, but with enough humor and reality that it keeps it from becoming just another "diet" book with a bunch of fancy words that no one but the author would understand anyway.   For instance I learned that tea......ALL tea comes from ONE sole plant.    That's right, all teas come from ONE plant. Be it Green tea, Black tea, White tea or Oolong tea, they all are derived from the plant called Camellia sinensis or as the Dr. affectionally calls it; Cami.    When I read that part, I was shocked as you will be too when you read it, and before I could ask myself outloud the question EVERYONE is wondering about---the good Dr. answered it for me in the next sentence.   The question is; If all tea comes from the same plant then how's come we have so many different teas available? Huh?! 

His answer was simple enough that even someone "as slow as I am can understand what you're saying" [that was from the movie "Born In East LA" in case you hadn't seen it yet] he said that the different types created, are done so by the manner in which the leaves and leaf buds are processed after harvesting.   It's these processings which vary in degrees that result in the different strengths of the tea, but the tea is still the same tea from the same ol' CAMI plant. They just vary from country to country depending on which sells better I suppose, however there is no such thing as a Green Tea plant, a White Tea plant, a Black Tea plant, or even a Oolong Tea plant. Just dear ol' Camellia sinensis or the Cami plant.   I also learned that the FOUR basic groups of teas have been developed in their own four eras like the White Tea has been around since the Tang Dynasty:618-907 AD. The Geen Tea since the Song Dynasty:960-1279 AD.  The Oolong Tea since the Ming Dynasty, which was around 1400 AD, and finally the Black Tea. I don't know about you, but I love it when a book can teach me something new, and this book does that but in a fun way too.

I also learned that the most expensive tea in the world is the Pu-Erh pronounced courtesy of the good Dr. as "poo-AIR" which is another nice feature of this book, the good Dr. helps you understand how to say the names correctly otherwise you'd go in some tea shop, [which by the way the good Dr. has his own Tea Shop called [what else] dr. tea's in Los Angeles, California drtea@ultimateteadiet.com ] and have people look at you like you just landed from Mars, and are speaking a different lanaguage, or worse they would laugh outloud at you, making you forget all about what you went in there for in the first place, which was a good cup/glass of tea.  I'm getting sidetracked so as I was saying, the most expensive tea I learned is the poo-AIR tea [actually spelled Pu-Erh] which sells for---are you ready?  This was a REAL shocker to me.....poo-AIR tea sells for $1,000.00 an OUNCE, $300.00 a POT, or $50.00 A CUP to go!  Now that is "some tea" huh and it better be brewed in a 100% gold pot and stirred with a pure gold spoon that you get to keep, for that kind of money......but believe it or not...it's worth it's weight in gold...seriously.

poo-AIR tea is from the Pu-Erh region of China and is an aged Black tea that up until 1995 was ILLEGAL to to import into the United States. It's processing is still a heavily guarded state secret in China and poo-AIR is prized for it's MEDICINAL properties, so I don't know about you but if it's properties are that great and will work so well that the method of how it's processed is a heavily guarded almost national secret in the country it originated, then it might be worth my time [and health] to go buy a cup to go.  The only trouble you and I will have is finding a tea shop that sells poo-AIR tea....because not many are trustworthy [imo] enough to be trusted with the "secret", but guess what? We're in luck because dr. tea's shop in LA just happens to sell poo-AIR, so what do you say?  Let's go grab us a cup, sit down a spell and bask in it's warm medicinal properties while we chat about how interesting and neat the book The Ultimate Tea Diet really is.

Afterword: This is Review One of Four - in the "Ultimate Tea Diet Contest" and your votes would be appreciated.  Thank you in advance.