Coffee: The Gateway Drink?

I think coffee needs to try a little harder to be the gateway drink to tea. As it stands now, the gateway is staying shut most of the time. Somehow the muddy waters of the coffee bean act as dragnet, never letting loose those who dare enter its lair. How else do you explain the answer to the question “Are you a tea drinker?” The most common reply: “No. I drink coffee.”

C’mon Coffee, let some of them pass. You opened the gate for me. I still drink 16 delicious ounces of you every morning. I would have never done it without knowing and loving you first, but now I replace my second and third cups of the day with tea. The hair on my arms thanks me. So does the bottom of my desk and top of my knee. You snag thousands of new guzzlers every day. Haven’t you reached your limit yet? Wouldn’t it feel great to purge some of the bloat and let a few of your congregation discover the world of tea? It’s time to grease up the hinges.

photo from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/blueblond/3353156365/

Simply Sweet - Kick your sweet tooth craving with a cup of tea!

Sweets are my vice. I like pretty much most things sweet: ice cream, chocolate, cookies, strawberries, and if it's not sweet, I make it so: sugar in coffee, honey in tea, vanilla soy with my cereal, sugar on grapefruit, kettle corn popcorn... you get the idea. So since my sweet tooth is around pretty much 24/7 and I can't always be eating the sugar that I want.

A perfect way to stave off that sweet tooth is by having a cup of tea! Not only is tea used as a medicinal appetite suppressant but many blended teas, or tisanes to be exact, are already naturally sweet and have practically zero calories, unless you use your own sweetener. Therefore tea works as a perfect calorie free substitute.

Some of my favorites include Boulder Blues, which is a fantastic blend of two green teas with a strawberry rhubarb flavoring and is great brewed hot or cold. The first time I had this tea I was floored. I had always thought of green tea as something to choke down because I knew it was good for me. Having Boulder Blues was my first entree into the blended tea world. Since Boulder Blues is a green tea blend it is very high in anti-oxidants and so I'm not only getting my sweet fix but drinking something that is 100x healthier than soda, a coffee latte, or even juice.

Another one of my favorite teas to satisfy my sweet tooth is Creme Caramel. Creme Caramel is a black tea blended with caramel bits. If you're in the mood for a foamy coffee drink, instead, make a concentrate of this amazing black tea and add your own steamed milk and all that you're giving up of the calories are what's in the milk!

Lastly I think every single person in this country should own a tin of Red Rocks. Red Rocks is made with the Rooibos herb, which is from a South African bush, and is blended with vanilla and almond to give it a sweet kick right from the start. Rooibos is incredibly healthy for you and if you're in the mood for a late night snack but don't want to sacrifice the calories, substitute a cup of Red Rocks with a bit of honey and you're in for a treat! (pun intended)

(chocolate cake photo from http://knol.google.com)

How I changed a bad habit into a daily healthy luxury (Part 2)

In order to change a so-called ‘bad’ habit I knew I needed to replace it with a ‘good’ habit. I also knew I needed it to taste great, feel good and be fun. Although it took some time and effort we decided to blend a tea specifically for me, a coffee drinker. The blend needed to be bold in flavor, strong in caffeine and aromatic. We started with a Pu-erh (a fully fermented earthy black tea high in caffeine) and blended it with Yunnan Gold, Ceylon, Assam, and added subtle hints of dark chocolate essences to give it a creamy sweet finish. Although the blend (aka BOLDER BREAKFAST blend) was absolutely amazing, I had a real hard time waking up to a cup of tea in the morning instead of my cup of Jo. After I struggled for a few days, I realized I didn’t have to quit cold turkey. I decided to replace my 16 oz cup of coffee with soy milk for an 8 oz cup of coffee and an 8 oz cup of tea (aka BOLDER BREAFAST blend) both with soy milk. After a few weeks, I started to feel better. I noticed I wasn’t crashing or I didn’t feel the jitters but I still felt bloated, dehydrated and a little irritable. The research shows that drinking a cup of coffee and/or tea will stimulate the beta waves in your brain but only tea will also stimulate your alpha waves thus keeping you alert and preventing you from crashing. So, drinking a cup of tea immediately after my cup of coffee kept me going. After about a month of waking up to both coffee and tea, I decided to take the next step and began drinking a full 16 oz cup of tea with soy milk and dropped the coffee. After awhile I realized that brewing a cup of coffee in the morning takes just as much time as steeping a cup of tea but I began to thoroughly appreciate the ritual of making tea and enjoy the health benefits of taking tea. Tune in next week to see how I take tea daily.

How I changed a bad habit into a daily healthy luxury (Part 1)

I started drinking coffee about 17 years ago in high school, when my friends and I used to hang out at Starbuck’s. Being so young, I didn’t really understand how coffee affected me, all I knew is that it woke me up. About 3 ½ years ago I started tuning into the way coffee made me feel. The more I focused on my coffee habit the more I realized that although coffee helped wake me up, it didn’t keep me awake or help me to focus. In doing some research I found that coffee has, on average, 150 milligrams of caffeine, which stimulates the beta waves (flight & fight) in your brain. Stimulating the beta waves will wake you up but won’t keep you going, which is why I would crash a couple hours after my first cup and would want another cup. I also realized that coffee made me feel irritable, bloated, dehydrated, jittery and although it might have immediately suppressed my appetite it actually made me hungrier as the caffeine wore off. Tune in next week to see how I weaned myself off coffee.

(photo from coffee_beans-oboerista.files.wordpress.com)