Mao Zedong, like many of his countrymen, refused to brush his teeth, choosing instead to rinse with tea and chew the leaves. He answered his critics with a rhetorical question: "Does a tiger brush his teeth?"

A rhetorical answer: Do a tiger's teeth turn green and fall out? No. Did Mao's? Yes.

[In 2003, a Thai company, claiming that catechins -- which occur naturally in tea -- control smelly bacteria, launched a tea-scented pantyliner to neutralize unpleasant odours.]