The Chinese Slimming Tea of The Century

For a bunch of reasons, my blogging is sporadic right now.
If you are sincerely missing my delightful prose and deep love for all humanity, I offer below a reprint of some text I did today for an informational project.

If you’ve searched for Chinese Slimming tea and found this page, then the good news is, you’ve found good information,. The bad news is, it’s probably not what you want to hear.
Over the last 40 years, the concept of Chinese Slimming tea has really ramped up. In the 1980s, a guy called Peter Foster spent a significant amount of time in prison after making claims that his ‘Bai Lin’ tea was a weight loss aid. It was just ordinary black tea, and yet he had thousands of fans including several big celebrity endorsements for his so-called Chinese Slimming Tea.
But now, there are thousands of websites offering Chinese Slimming Tea. So, what has changed?
Firstly, the science. We now know that there is an actual effect that these Chinese slimming teas and other teas offer, and it’s called thermogenesis – it accelerates the rate that we burn fat. Most Chinese slimming tea sites will tell you this! But they fail to answer the obvious question: by how much? And the answer to that is: by such a tiny, tiny, tiny amount that it will make no difference to you over a whole year. It’s barely detectable. And there is lot of misreporting that tells you “Green tea this” or “Oolong tea that” by people like Dr Oz who really ignore basic science to make popular TV
Secondly, the pitch. people who want to separate you from your money have got smarter. They’ve now added all kinds of qualifiers. And the main one is “You Will Lose a Massive Amount of Weight Drinking Our Brand of Chinese Slimming Tea as Part of a Low Calorie Diet” . In other words, go on a diet and don’t blame us if it fails, but we’ll take the credit if it succeeds.
Thirdly, the Internet. Yes, these days, any idiot with a nearby public library can be an internet entrepenuer, and not all of them play by the rules. Not all of them even know there are rules.
So, if you really want a Chinese Slimming Tea, then go on a diet, and drink your favourite Chinese tea as part of it. No magic formulation required.

(the original is here)