Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Tea for Two. Or just me

I love tea. Anyone who has spent any time with me knows this. I drink usually 6-10 cups of tea per day (unless the weather is as hot and humid as it was today. I only drank 2 cups). Why do I like it so much?
1) It's healthy. Tea is full of antioxidants, which prevents cancer. There are no calories. There is no sodium or cholesterol or anything but hot water, really. Tea even is good for the enamel of teeth (although it does stain teeth).

2) It's warm. Even though there is caffeine in tea, there is something comforting and heartwarming about tea. It doesn't have the bitterness that coffee has, or the sugar of cocoa or lattes, so the first sip just warms your insides without cringing at the taste or grit. Even in warm weather, a warm drink is very comforting.

3) It's caffeinated!! As a night owl, I cannot (literally) make it through the long morning lectures without a little kick, but it doesn't cause the jitters of coffee and isn't as abrasive as soda in the morning. I usually put the bag in when I leave the house, and throw it in a garbage bin about halfway to class. (I found out that tea that has steeped too long (black: 3 min+, green 10 min+) can increase risk for kidney stones. No one wants kidney stones.) Start drinking when class starts, and the caffeine should last the whole 55-90 minutes.

4) It goes with everything. Green and Black tea goes with most meals and desserts and snacks. I love having a cheese pita with a mug of black tea. Best tasting, if not practical, midnight snack.

5) It tastes fantastic. Hot cocoa is good sometimes, coffee is useful when you need to stay awake or need to poop (the downside of coffee in class!), but tea is just flavored hot water with some kick. It's also easy to make it to your own tastes. If you like it strong, leave it in longer, if you just wet the bag and take it out, that's easy to do as well. Tea is as bland or as strong as you need it to be. You can flavor it with ginger, or lemon, or honey, or sugar, or orange or flower petals, or whatever you want! You can even get tea made from ginger or flower petals with no tea leaves at all.

Warnings: If you drink hot liquids too fast frequently, it can lead to throat cancer.
Thus concludes my rave of the day.

1 comment:

  1. What I learned from this post: coffee makes you poop!

    Also, I should try more tea because I keep meaning to but I never get around to it! I do know this person who drank so much tea that his throat swelled up due to the amount of fluids in his body... anyway, don't drink that much. :)

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