Source: https://mastodon.social/@Daojoan/111990672465208834
Edit: pu’er, black, green, white tea. Love it all and drink it more than I drink coffee. No need to start a culture war; taste is as individual as humour.
Getting rid of coffee is amazing. It’s the best feeling there is. You’ll get amazing clarity and just about everything is better.
That’s why I do it several times a year.
I dont know much about coffee but I stopped drinking alcohol lately and I was afraid of missing the taste part of drinking (the nice taste of a good whine or beer). Coffee doesn’t have the same depth - or at least I didn’t explore it yet. Then I discovered tea and all its variety. Tea have been around for thousand of years, which means there’s a lot of variety and different process per regions. There’s even tea you can age, with millesime, for extra-fancy.
It’s just that teabags just aren’t good. They crush the whole tea plant using machines. Kinda like instant coffee just isn’t that good most of the time.
I don’t really drink, but my family loves a little bit of a drink. When my partner and I go for dinner at my parents now my Mum always has some non-alcoholic wine/champagne/cooler for me and it’s nice for when I want a flavoured drink that’s cold and isn’t soda water or really sweet. She also had been liking it for nights with friends where she still wants the taste of another glass of wine, but not more alcohol.
But also, a total tea snob who agrees with you on tea bags being terrible.
Iced tea with lemon all day everyday
I’m trying to cut out coffee and tea is one of my weaknesses. So soothing…
But the whole point for me is to avoid caffeine entirely, so resist I must. And if I may quote the comic,
IT FUCKING SUCKS
There are decaf black teas if you want that. Or plenty of herbals.
I avoid stuff with hibiscus, which limits the herbals I can drink since it’s so prolific, but there are plenty of them.
I thought it would be awful but I briefly had to cut caffeine to check if it was a trigger for something and I got a bag of loose-leaf decaf earl grey and it was absolutely fine which was encouraging (and good that i could tell my Dad now that he has had to cut it for the forseeable future).
If you are Caffeine Sensitive, and Like Coffee…
There are a few brands out there that make a really good Decaf Coffee and some roasters and Coffee Suppliers are actually giving more of a shit about their Decaf offerings. It does get a little pricier per bag of beans, but - might be worth shopping around if you have some independent shops/roasters around you.
Have you found a non caffeinated alternative? Also weaning yourself off caffeine works so much better.
So I’ve been told, but I’ve always done best with brutish force. I’m very habitual, so I don’t want to put myself into a position where I may end up drinking more coffee.
I had a sip of some non-caffeinated coffee once and it tasted bleh so I haven’t bothered looking for alternatives. I’d rather play mental gymnastics in my own gym, if that makes sense.
I can tell you that there are decent decaf options, and you should never forget that you habits also enforce that a new coffee taste will be harder to accept. Maybe to get you going you go off normal coffee cold turkey for a bit and then start up with some decaf. I did it this way when i stopped using tabaco and switched to vaping pure product. Before, the flavours were all off, now i can never go back to smoking with a flame :)
I didn’t understand why tea is so hated in America then I went there are it was by far the worst tea I have ever had. Like worse than I could make at home if I tried to make a shit tea. Worse than I thought possible.
I used to disagree with the death penatlity in America but if they dragged the Liptons board of directors out and shot them it wouldn’t be undeserved.
But how its brewed, how it’s served, what it’s served with, what the tea is it is all shit. I talked to a friend when I was there and he said “yea I know I brought a 50 pack with me from home. I’ve been here before” haha. The only place you can get a passable tea in America is on a BA flight out of the country. Even then it’s a shitty airline tea but it’s much better than any cafe, restaurant or pub in the country.
I don’t get me started in the fucking Guinness.
Tea in America is fine. There are plenty of brands to buy and orange pekoe is perfectly okay, as long as it’s not Lipton. Bigelow and Celestial Seasonings are both America brands of tea that are perfectly fine and have large offerings.
I mean, if you’re that particular, just buy some PG Tips or Yorkshire Gold in the grocery store and brew it yourself.
I tried tea in the UK and didn’t think it was very good either tho. I think I just don’t like tea that much.
Ironically the best coffee I ever had was a cappuccino in London. Which I paired with a full English. Still one of the best breakfasts in my life, that shit was dank
If you are in a cosmopolitan area there’s plenty of access to tea houses serving loose leaf Japanese and Chinese tea that would satisfy the most demanding tea enthusiast. That doesn’t begin to count the non-traditional items like boba, tisanes, etc.
The USA doesn’t have much of a British style tea tradition, but that’s mostly because it’s a diverse nation and British tea and food is mostly crap to begin with. Why would the US drink British tea when there are so many alternatives that are actually good?
I do believe it all started with the Boston Tea Party. Drinking coffee as an alternative was hip and it just kinda stuck around.
Coffee in the US (outside of specialty shops) is always piss poor and IME thin cups of dark-ish water without much actual coffee flavour.
That’s the case everywhere. Starbucks is ubiquitous. You can either complain about it, or walk across the street and get some good coffee, which is also ubiquitous.
It tastes like something a child would make and give to there mum on motherday and the mum would have to drink it because the kid is really proud that he used 10 spoonfuls of sugar.
That’s not a drink for adults. Why you guys so scared of water?
Yorkshire tea is in my opinion the best. Nothing difficult needs to be done just follow the instructions add full fat milk, you can check colours online to see how much milk to add and add sugar if you wish.
PG tips and Tetley are also good. Weirdly tea I’ve had with “English breakfast” hardly ever tastes like British tea.
Green tea is super hit or miss. (No milk in this one) Sometimes it’s too weak and other times it’s a bit bitter. But I don’t really have a brand in mind for that.
A mid range Jasmine tea is probably the best for consistency, in terms of a no milk green tea.
Oolong is also good. Actually thinking about the best place to get green tea in America would be at a Chinese restaurant or Chinese store.
Oh and don’t microwave water. No idea why, it tastes weird. Also heat the water then add it to the cup, don’t heat cold water with tea in it.
