I’ve had a post by this title in my Drafts folder for over a month. I originally started to write it for my letter C post in the #AtoZChallenge, because I didn’t feel like writing a self-care themed post. I ultimately did anyway and this post sat in Drafts forever. I didn’t actually end up writing about coffee or tea in the draft. The post was, or so I believe, inspired by a fellow blogger’s question of the day or something. Anyway, today let’s discuss hot beverages.
I should really ask my parents whether they still have this photograph of me drinking one of my first cups of coffee and, if so, whether they can digitally send it to me. You see, I was about six when I first started drinking coffee and I hated the taste. I truly had a disgusted look on my face!
I at the time drank coffee with lots of milk and sugar in it. The milk was supposedly to lessen the impact of caffeine. I always left the sugar sitting at the bottom of the mug and spooned it up after finishing my coffee. I hardly ever drank tea as a child. When I drank it, I had milk and sugar in it as well.
When I was around fourteen, I had a weird nightmare about someone having switched the sugar with some type of poison. After that, I acutely decided to leave the sugar out of my coffee. Then some years later I left out the milk. Now I drink the pure stuff, but I still get the same disgusted look on my face that I got as a six-year-old. Guess I’m addicted.
With respect to tea, it took me a long time to figure out what I liked. When I was around nineteen, I somehow convinced myself that I liked strong, black tea. Well, I don’t. Then followed rooibos, which my fellow patients and I at the psych hospital referred to as stress tea for its supposed calming effect. I went through a phase of particularly liking rooibos with strawberry-whipped cream flavor.
Then followed Earl Grey tea, because my now husband was into it. I tried a lot of different tea flavors with him when he visited me at the psych hospital.
I don’t even remember when or how I got into the green tea phase. In any case, I now drink pure green tea only. Some years ago, I tried green tea with pink pepper and pineapple flavor because my mother-in-law had bought a package, but I really didn’t like it. I, by the way, drink my tea without sugar too.
Are you a coffee or a tea person? How do you like your coffee or tea?
My mom started us on sweet iced tea when we were toddlers so my sister and I have an aversion to it. We prefer soda. I served so much coffee as a waitress just the smell gags me.
Give me a Dr. Pepper or vanilla Coke any day. Not healthy but soo yummy.
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Oh that’s so interesting. I don’t really like any carbonated drinks and never liked coke. I’ll have to try vanilla coke though.
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I like both, but I generally have only one large mug of coffee in the morning and then lots of tea the rest of the day 🙂
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Oh, that’s good! I drink coffee all the time at the care facility, but at my husband’s, I have a large mug of coffee with my breakfast and drink green tea the rest of the day.
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Hot coffee, iced tea😀
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Oh yes, iced tea can be good. However, most store-bought varieties are carbonated, so I don’t like that.
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I don’t like the carbonation either
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I love tea and I take it with milk. I used to add sugar, but I was able to get off of that by switching to stevia. I didn’t like the taste of the brand of stevia I was using, so it was good motivation to cut down and then cut out my sweetener use.
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Oh, that’s good. I should really have added that refined sugar is basically poison disguised as food, so my nightmare wasn’t that off. I’ve never tried stevia, although most of the soft drinks I drink probably have it in it as a sugar substitute.
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I drink both decaf tea and coffee. Been drinking the decaf kind for many years at home. But whether before when drinking the caffinated stuff, or now, the decaf kind, tea is what I mostly drink. And I can’t believe I have managed to drink it black now. I vary still whether to add soya milk to my black tea, but most of the time black.
I like some herbal teas too.
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Yes, some herbal teas are great too. I tried mixing my own herbs for a while, which was good, but I had way too many herbs on hand then.
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After way too many years of drinking lots and lots of coffee each day I finally switched to green tea.
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Oh, I get that. There’s a lot less caffeine in green tea indeed.
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I’m definitely both. I love holding that warm mug between both hands, it’s so comforting. Coffee is either black or with some almond milk -depends on my mood. As for tea, I enjoy almost all tea. Usually I’ll put a little honey in it, and only almond milk if it’s the type of flavor that I feel is better with it (like earl gray) 🙂
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Oh, I’ve never tried coffee or tea with almond milk. It sounds good. Thanks for commenting.
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I love coffee and used to be a heavy coffee drinker, but I no longer am. I think I started drinking coffee roughly at about the same age as you, and I drank it with a lot of milk and sugar and it was usually either instant coffee or cappuccino, these days I can’t stand either of those. Then I started drinking black coffee when I was older, and I realised that having a cup of strong coffee in the morning really helps to keep my blood pressure up, as have a tendency to have low blood pressure which runs on my Mum’s side of the family, at least among women, so it can make me quite sluggish or dizzy or groggy in the mornings, and then if I didn’t drink my coffee straight after breakfast, the day was wasted, haha, it helped me very much to stay energised. I had it with only a little sugar, or sometimes honey, my Mum always drinks coffee with honey and it’s good in my opinion. But at some point, after some years since I’ve started drinking coffee, and after some experimenting, I’ve made a connection that coffee exacerbates my anxiety a lot. And the difference between my state of mind without coffee vs some time after drinking coffee could be dramatic, so in the end I was actually surprised why I took me so long to see this, but I guess I just didn’t want to see it as I liked coffee so much.
When I figured that out, I stopped coffee cold turkey, and now I only drink it on some special occasions or when my energy levels are really low and I’m having a light day so that potential higher anxiety won’t get in the way of things I’d have to do, or when I’m not feeling too anxious to begin with.
I had to find some alternative stimulant, and green tea sort of works, only I don’t like it quite as much, I wouldn’t be very surprised if I had the same disgusted expression drinking it as you have when drinking coffee. 😀 I do drink it when I really need something to get me going, after a poor night’s sleep or something, but it’s not such a routine as coffee was.
I missed the taste of coffee after I quit drinking it, and some time later I discovered Kopiko candy which are coffee-flavoured and contain some caffeine. So when I feel like having a coffee, for the taste of it, I have a Kopiko, and I believe it has a slightly stimulating effect too but doesn’t send my brain in overdrive like coffee did. Also cocoa can be a fairly good stimulant though maybe not as great as coffee or green tea, so I like to drink it once in a while, and you can make it so that it almost tastes like coffee haha.
I love iced coffee or latte. I’ve never drank very much of it but I like to have a cup once in a while and it doesn’t have to be strong, it’s so delicious!
I also like teas though, I love raspberry-flavoured tea, black tea is good, recently I’ve discovered hibiscus tea and am in love with it. Iced tea is not my thing though, even though I love iced coffee.
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Thanks so much for commenting. I never knew coffee with honey in it was an actual thing. I mean, I tried it once for fun to try out weird combinations and think that shaped my perception of it. I knew about tea with honey as a home remedy for throataches and that’s how I got to try out honey in my coffee too, but I didn’t like it.
I’m so sorry coffee exacerbates your anxiety. I really need to drink some caffeinated drinks throughout the day or I’ll get sluggish and depressed too. I think I’ve never noticed it worsening my anxiety. Glad you found some alternative in green tea.
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I am a coffee person. ☕️ I’m open to drinking tea because I think it’s healthier, but I’ve never really cared for the taste and I don’t want to drink it loaded with sugar, etc. Maybe I’ll try green tea again, I do think tea has more health benefits than coffee. 💚🤎
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Yes, I know green tea in particular has lots of health benefits. So does black tea to a lesser degree I believe, however, coffee also for sure has some health benefits, although I’ve heard it should sitll be consumed in moderation. Then again, doesn’t that apply to everything? Also, in case you’re worried about coffee being dehydrating in particular, that’s a myth. Its only sign of dehydration is it leaving your mouth dry, but other than that it’s about 80% water and it does hydrate to that extent.
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I really, really don’t like coffee! Everyone thinks I’m crazy haha, but I can’t stand the taste! However I’m a huge tea person!!! My husband and I both love earl grey tea!
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You’re not crazy or alone for not liking coffee. 🙂
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