I love coffee. Correction: I used to love coffee. Well, I still do, I think. I don't know. Read on.
On Christmas Eve, I started to develop a pretty awful cold/cough. (It still is persisting, but it's about done with.) Consequently, I started drinking lemon tea with honey, or lemongrass tea with honey, or mint tea with honey. Anything to start making my throat feel better and not like someone scraped it up with the bristles of a toothbrush. I wasn't drinking coffee at all, because the harshness of it made my throat feel worse.
Anyway, at the beginning of this week, I decided to try having a cup of coffee. Big mistake. It tasted awful! I thought, well, maybe it's because this cold is lingering. So I kept trying throughout the week, and it kept tasting awful.
So now I guess I'm a tea drinker instead of a coffee drinker. I've only been using the pre-packaged tea bags for now, but locally we have a tea shop that sells loose tea leaf. Anyone out there also drink loose-leaf tea? What's your favorite? For caffeine addicts like me, what have you found that gives you the jolt of caffeine you desire? I appreciate your comments and help!
The only loose leaf tea I've had is my pregnancy tea.
ReplyDeleteCoffee and beer are "acquired tastes"
ReplyDeleteAll that means is they taste awful until you get used to them.
Also I will leave you with this trasnaction between my 10 year old and me
Mom, how do you drink your coffee
Well, I ike doubke sugar and double milk.
Why the extra stuff.
Well coffee is quite bitter
If it tastes so bad why drink it?
(D'oh, got no answer to that one)
I did the 'sore throat, drink lots of tea' thing this past week. But I loved my coffee every bit as much after and since. If I had to recommend loose leaf, I would say I'm partial to Dazbog (not sure if it's sold everywhere) in their white strawberry tea. I love white teas!
ReplyDeleteOut of curiosity, were you drinking your coffee black? Maybe try it with a little cream, some cinnamon, and stevia - and let me know if you're still over it:)
Actually... Puff...if you find well-made coffee (from a good roaster, and fresh), the bitterness is nigh eliminated, leaving only the fruity, chocolaty tastes we so adore.
ReplyDeleteAnd beer tastes wonderful, if you stay away from the stuff they sell by the crate. Don't slight the drinks because people can't make them properly!
But about the tea, I prefer Taylor's of Harrowgate. The have an excellent selection of well-blended teas, and do best whenever they do black teas. Black teas are where you are going to get your caffeine jolt—look for blends with Assam, Ceylon, or Darjeeling, or just go for the fullness of a pure Indian. Assams are malty and 'heady,' Ceylons are more fruity and spicy, and Darjeeling often tastes earthy and vaguely fungal. These are massive generalizations, of course, but... Green teas are great as well. I prefer the gunpowder tea but that's just me. Try to get green and white teas made by Asian blenders (the English blenders don't really 'get it,' I think). You'll want to drink green teas with a pinch of loose leaf in the bottom of the cup, and just pour the hot water over them. You'll have to get used to 1.) leaves in your drink, and 2.) using the same leaves many times. The tea should be light when consumed. I've seen many techniques for brewing white tea, but I'm not an experienced white-tea drinker so you'll have to depend on someone else's expertise.
You'll want to invest in a good teapot, a kettle, and a strainer or some tea filters (Melita is very good). For a pot of good old fashioned black tea, measure out three teaspoons of loose-leaf (as they say—"one for me, one for thee, one for the pot"), heat the water, warm the pot, pour a little bit of hot water over the tea and then pour that out, then fill the pot. The longer you leave the leaves in the pot, the more caffeine will be extracted, by the way.
Hope this helps and feel better!
I havent tried it. But it seems very interesting.
ReplyDeleteYou may like Upton Tea. They have an informative website -- and sell hundreds of teas. For the winter I like Ginseng Tie-Guan-Yin. However they do sell small samples so you can try lots of kinds of tea.
ReplyDelete