Category Archives: Hibernians

Irish Fighters Drink Matcha And Support Hibernians

If you follow sports at all, you’ll likely be aware of the meteoric rise of Irish fighters. Seemingly out of nowhere, they have shot onto the scene and into the spotlight. Everyone wants to know, what makes them so good? Where do they get their strength from? Where do they get their stamina from? Everybody wants to know, because they want to be like them. They think if they learn their secrets, they can succeed too. Not necessarily as fighters, but in whatever they choose to take on in their own lives.

Well, I recently got a chance to sit down with one of the more famous Irish fighters, along with his entire security detail. He takes personal security very seriously. I won’t name any names, because he asked me not to. I do say  that we’ve been friends for a while, having grown up together in Danbury Connecticut. We met each other at early meetings of the Ancient Order of the Hibernians and we’ve been friends ever since we met there.

ancient hibernians
Memebrs of the Ancient Order of the Hibernians marching

In fact, my friend claims that the support he gets from the Danbury Hibernians is one of the big reasons for his success. He also claims that the support he gives back to them helps a lot too. Apparently, it helps keep him grounded and he is also someone who believes in karma. He feels giving back to the Hibernians is good karma and that karma is repaid by success in his career.

His other secret? Well, if you’re at all familiar with this site, you can probably guess it: it’s matcha green tea powder. That’s right, this guy drinks a cup of matcha every morning. But he doesn’t stop there. He uses green tea powder in his food as well. While he is training, he always has a smoothie made with the stuff. When he treats himself to a desert, he makes sure it’s one that has been cooked with green tea.

Of course, he doesn’t make any of this himself. He didn’t want me to add this part, but he is a horrible cook. He would manage to even ruin the smoothie. And why should he cook for himself? He’s got money now, he can afford to hire someone to do all this for him. And he does. He hired an ancient Japanese guy, a guy who also grew up in Danbury, Connecticut, and he has this guy come over for a few hours everyday to fix him his smoothie and prepare his meals.

The guy makes the meals, then puts them in Tupperware in the fridge. Whenever my friend feels hungry, he heats some of this food up. The food is all healthy and much of it contains the famous Japanese green tea, as mentioned.

Personally, I don’t know if this is truly the reason for his success or not. I’ve seen the way the this guy trains. He is a monster. He never gives up, he pushes himself far beyond his limits and far beyond the limits of anyone else. Far, far, far beyond the limits of most of the rest of us. This is why he is successful. Maybe the matcha helps. Maybe the support of the Danbury Hibernians helps.

At the very least, I do believe that he believes all of this stuff helps him and I know that that is important. It helps his morale and perhaps that is what allows him to push himself so much further than a normal person. Looking at it this way, I guess he is right. This stuff does help him succeed. I guess that means you need to join the ancient Hibernians and you need to start drinking, or eating, matcha green tea, if you want to match his success. Or even just come close to matching it.

So what are you waiting for? Move to Danbury and get online and buy yourself some of the finest Japanese tea powder money can buy. Buy the best stuff straight from the Uji region of Japan near Kyoto. Then get out there and bust your ass. Success will be yours!

Drinking Green Tea Among the Hibernians in Danbury

If you live in New York City, you’re probably looking for some day trips to get out into the countryside. I have done this myself and I remember one time I ended up in the town of Danbury, Connecticut. It is not big and seemed to be full of Irish people, judging by the large parade they were holding that day and all the flyers proclaiming the marchers were part of the ancient order of the Hibernians.

Danbury, Connecticut town centerI don’t really know what was going on exactly. I had simply gotten up that morning, made myself a large thermos full of green tea and got in my car to drive in one direction. I just kept driving and went through a bunch of towns until I stumbled onto this one, where the parade was being held. I got out of my car and walked around a bit, watching the Irish parade and talking to some people.

I met a beautiful red haired Irish girl who came up and talked to me because she was curious about my tea. See, the thermos I use to brew my loose leaf green tea is made from clear plastic, so you can see the leaves floating in the water. This is not unusual in a country like China or Japan, but here in the US, it always gets looks and comments. Most of the time that can be a bit annoying, but when the commenter looks like this girl, I certainly have no problem with it.

I happily explained to her how I like to brew my tea, usually sencha or Dragon Well which you can buy from most online vendors, in that cup, because it means I can sip on it all day long. Once it’s empty, I simply put a few more dried leaves on top of the wet ones already in the cup and add more hot water and my second cup is ready.

Note: I recently visited Danbury again and they actually have a real tea shop now! And they have other big city things, unfortunately: a lot of break ins. This means you will start seeing more surveillance cameras around Danbury.

In return for my explaining this to her, she explained to me what exactly the ancient order of the Hibernians is and what they do and how they are connected to Ireland. It all seemed really ridiculous to me, to be honest, but she seemed to be into it so I was into it, in the hopes of getting her to soon be into me.

We talked for a few hours and watched the parade go by. Afterwards we had dinner together, before she had to go home and I had to return to the city. We have kept in touch and I often ask her questions about Irish issues, but I’ve not yet had the opportunity to return to Danbury. I definitely want to do so soon, not because I like the town or even care about it, but because of her. Even better, she has expressed an interest in coming to New York to visit me. Let’s hope that happens soon. If she does show up, I will happily prepare her as many cups of green tea as she would like and I will listen to her stories about the Danbury Hibernians as well.

This post was written by a friend and none of the opinions are my own. The girl really is beautiful, though…I’ve seen a photo.

Why the Irish Hibernians Should Adopt Matcha Green Tea

Quick, what color do you think of when you think of Ireland? Unless you’re colorblind, you probably said green. The color green is basically synonymous with all things Irish. So maybe green tea should be the national drink of Ireland, just like it is in Japan or China. I know, I know the national drink is whiskey and that will never change, although beer seems pretty popular too, but hear me out. I know what I’m going to write next will probably not go over well and it got me laughed out of a meeting of the Ancient Order of Hibernians in Danbury, Connecticut, but I’m hoping the online community is a little more receptive to new (and perhaps a bit crazy) ideas.

ancient order of the hiberniansWhen I was living in Shanghai, one of my favorite bars served a whiskey with green tea cocktail. It was pretty good, but I thought the whiskey overpowered the tea. They made the drink by using standard bottled green tea and whiskey. In this case cheap whiskey. And of course cheap tea.

This got me thinking: if it tastes good but the problem is that the tea is not strong enough, then it makes sense to use stronger tea. I would actually suggest using matcha green tea powder. As anyone who reads this website knows, this is my favorite type of tea and I not only like to drink it in the traditional style of the Japanese tea ceremony, but I also love sprinkling it on all kinds of foods and adding it to various drinks. So why not add it to whiskey?

Let me get this out of the way immediately: I have never tried this and there is a good chance it will be horrible. On the other hand, there is also a chance it will be great. I think what we would have to do to have the greatest chance of this concoction tasting good, is to make a cup of matcha tea the standard way and to add whiskey to that. In this way the tea will be brewed correctly and we’ll have the strong taste we are accustomed to, meaning it should be able to hold up to the whiskey. If you simply sprinkle the green tea powder into a glass of whiskey, I’m pretty sure the drink will turn out pretty bad.

So there’s my idea for mixing tea with the traditional Irish drink to make a new Irish drink. More importantly, it’s a green Irish drink. Not only is the drink green, but the matcha powder itself is a bright green color and would be a great representation for Ireland. I mean, the Irish—and especially the Irish living in America—love all things green. Since they don’t yet have a green drink, apart from the weird green beer you see on St. Patrick’s Day, adopting matcha makes perfect sense to me, despite what the Danbury Hibernians seem to think of my idea.

Of course, there’s one more big advantage to this: it can make the Irish healthier. We Irish are not known as bastions of health—we don’t eat the healthiest foods and many of us probably drink too much alcohol, so adding one of the world’s healthiest drinks to our diets probably won’t hurt. Quite the opposite: it will help us lead healthier lives.

So, if you don’t think I’m completely insane and you think my idea could be pretty good, jump on my bandwagon. Convince any Irish person you know, be they family members or friends or just a horde of people at your annual St. Patrick’s Day parade. Get them to try matcha and maybe we’ll get them on board with the idea of adopting it as a national drink. Then write to any Irish organization you can think of, like the Ancient Order of Hibernians. You might get a bad reaction like I did in Danbury, or maybe you’ll get a great reaction. Maybe you’ll be the start of a new movement; a movement to spread matcha around the world one culture at a time, starting with the culture that worships all things green.