There you go! I am so glad someone is 'helped' in any way about this. Well...if you drink it from that 'tarditional' mug, you put a lot of it in, very very warm aaaalmost hot water and sip it very slowly through a traditional silver or silver coated straw, then you don't 'inhale' any of the tiny leave peaces and I guess your body 'takes' the tea better that way. I drink it 'raw' too, but from a huge mug and I wait for some of it to fall to the bottom..I HAVE to buy the straw thing...so much easier....