Have a great Christmas!

I’m with you on green tea vs. coffee!

yours in good health - and misery,
dig
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Add a green tea bag to your coffee.
If that doesn't work for you, throw in chocolate and peanut butter...

8; my case😂😂

I think it's a plot.

Be good to yourself.

Life can be both, not just either-or.

soul-crushing, tasteless food & exhausting, agonizing exercise for a long, miserable life!

“ All this exercise and we are still gonna die!”

Drink it black about an hour before you eat. Green tea still has caffeine, but other benefits as well. And you can drink it thoughout the day. I love coffee, but don't drink as much as I used to. My wife and I share about 45 grams/900 ml of water brewed in a French press most mornings. I'll have the occassional red eye. Sometimes I'll have coffee after dinner out, or late in the evening when I drive downtown to pick up my daughter from work.

But I have been drinking a lot more tea lately, as well. Earl Grey, Orange pekoe, oolong, black Darjeeling with sage leaves or mint leaves added to the brew. Also chamomile and chrysanthemum flowers together or separate. Cinnamon tea made from simmered Ceylon cinnamon stick.

Oh and try grinding some cinnamon in with your beans. I add about 5 grams cinnamon to the 45 coffee. Try grinding cardamom pods with your beans, too! Don't quit! Moderate!

how many do you add? I use a french press too... about that size. I'm a big fan of Earl Grey (I prefer Bigelow, occasionally the fancy blend from a local tea shop) and Darjeeling (I'll try it with mint, that sounds nice)

Less might be too subtle? Yes, grind them with the beans. You could add cardamom to espresso, too, for an Arabic style.

Yeah, the Bigelow is nice. We love their Constant Comment spiced tea, too. There's a loose leaf 2.5 oz package by Steven Smith Teamaker that they call Lord Bergamot. It's good. They also do a really nice jasmine green tea. I get that at Wholefoods.

black teas, but the Darjeeling seems to be the strongest. Love it.

Thank you!

It’s called sleeping!

a choice it's either coffee or a flavorful black tea like Darjeeling or Earl Grey. My wife is Japanese, and she has green tea daily, although she likes coffee, too.

though. So many choices now. Just like micro brews. Back in the day we had Hills Bros., Chock-Full-of Nuts, and then Mrs. Folger and Juan Valdez came on the scene. God, I'm dating myself..

So I’m stocking up. I have 12 pounds of coffee at least in my freezer, another 8 to 10 pounds in the cabinet. Also stocking up on my favorite teas. Stocking up on chocolate too. As well as sugar and my sweeteners. Going to try to go on as long as possible. If I have to, I will have blackberry tea and sassafras growing in my yard as well as mint and perhaps chamomile.

I had to have my septic system redone a month ago, and the man that dug it out, very kindly took out, my out of control forsythia bush, I’ve tried to get rid of for years. It cleared enough space, I can put some garden beds out there too. Perhaps my mini green houses too.

I feel compelled to do something to help myself even if it not very much.

it boils. And you steep it for a much shorter time frame. Otherwise it gets bitter.

https://www.shantitea.ca/home/blog_article/st/773/how-to-steep-green-tea-properly?srsltid=AfmBOopPyA8Vp_gLdaE33bEQZ0A4xwSt0ocdjxCosYTz0UK-J3jZsJSo

"SNIP...........

How to steep green tea properly

In our workshops we come across a lot of people who didn’t previously realize that steeping time and water temperature affect the taste of tea drastically. Just a difference of 15 seconds, or a temperature variance of as little as 2 degrees can make the difference between an exquisite cup of tea and an awfully bitter tea experience.

Green tea, White Tea, and Oolong Tea
Using boiling water to steep tea only works well for black teas and herbal ‘teas’. For green, white, and oolong teas, boiling water can burn the tea leaves and make the tea very bitter. Generally there is a range between 75C and 85C for green, white, and oolong teas (see our specific tea product pages for temperature guidelines), but of course most people do not have a thermometer ready to measure water temperature; instead, they will simply wait for the kettle to whistle, then pour water onto the leaves. Again, this is fine for black teas and herbal teas, but there are a few tricks you can use to make sure that your water is closer to the appropriate temperature for your tea.

Method 1: Letting your water cool after boiling.
One way to get your water down to the proper temperature range is to let it cool for about 5 to 6 minutes after boiling. So you would take your kettle off the stove, open the lid to let the steam escape, and let it cool down for 5 to 6 minutes. Then pour the water onto your tea leaves. This is not an exact method, but it is far better than pouring boiling water directly onto your green, white, or oolong teas.

Method 2: Pulling the kettle off before the water boils.
Although this method does work to make your tea taste better, there are problems associated with it. The oxygen content in water helps with the tea infusion process, and by boiling the water and then letting it cool, you are using water that has been slightly de-oxygenated through the boiling process. Ideally you would actually take the kettle off the stove before it boils, but without a thermometer it is difficult to tell when you remove the kettle. One trick would be to wait until you begin to see bubbles forming at the bottom of the kettle, before they start to rise to the surface. This is one indication that your water temperature is nearing the ideal range. By pulling the kettle off before the water boils, you are preventing excessive de-oxygenation of the water, and your tea will infuse and taste better.

Method 3: Ice cubes
Most of us only have one kettle which we use to heat water for tea. If you are able to acquire a thermometer, you can do an experiment which will allow you to easily get the right temperature of water without the use of a thermometer after this first time. Simply bring your water to a boil, place your thermometer into it (Make sure it is a thermometer which will be able to measure temperatures in excess of 100C, and please do not use a mercury thermometer), and start dropping ice cubes into the kettle, one at a time, letting them fully melt and stirring the water before adding the next ice cube. Figure out how many iced cubes you need to add to bring your water temperature down into the ideal range. Once you know this, you can use this method to quickly cool down your water into the ideal range without the need for a thermometer. This is an especially useful trick for cafes who need to quickly prepare green teas for their customers, but only have one source of hot water from their industrial coffee maker.

Steeping Time
Steeping time is the next important factor in making a good cup of tea. For green teas, the recommended steeping time usually does not exceed 2:30 min, and usually is best at no more than 2 min. Any longer than this and the tea begins to get bitter. Keep in mind that green teas are great for 2nd and 3rd infusions, so don’t throw out your tea leaves after the first infusion. Different flavors come out in each infusion, so try to take the time to enjoy full complexity of the flavor profile.

Keeping the temperature and steeping times low will help to coax out the best flavors from your green tea, so spend a little time to figure out the way that works best for you to control these variables, and you’ll never have a cup of bitter green tea again.

..............SNIP"

from two separate sources 25 years apart.

At my Art College way back I took a great ourse comparative religion course. Our professor took us to various places of worship.

We also went to The Japan Society near the UN. A Jspanese cultural center to foster understanding.

We went for a Japanese Tea Ceremony. We were in room closed by the traditional paper, and wood lattice walls, and sliding door.

It was Matcha tea which I managed to drink down. A more opaque green, and a bit frothy. Stronger than regular green tea.

and you may recover some joy!

Hug

Buy the best, thereby increasing your enjoyment and then have it less often...


Some stellar options include Kona fr. Hawaii, Golden Sumatran and Jamaican Blue Mtn.

Really Enjoy!

Give Up Nothing!

Small pleasures are sweet, short and oh, so necessary.

Seeing that I was parched and thirsty from whatever activity, one of my friends kindly offered me a green tea in a tall, unopened can. I'd never tried it before but had heard good things, so I gratefully accepted.

It was so unbelievably foul that I looked to my other friends because I was sure I'd been pranked. "How could anyone drink this?" I wondered. "How did the first person to drink it convince the second person that it wasn't poison?"

Two decades later the questions remain unanswered, my opinion unchanged.

I get the bottled stuff, but it's the extra-dark/bold Japanese tea (Ito En brand), not sugared-up or "citrus-flavored" crap from Arizona or Lipton.

Not that I have. But I like it for you.

I need it first thing in the morning, and that's why I get up. It is a ritual.
If in a hotel or on a trip I am like a hunter scavenging on a mission to find it.
I need it to keep that headache from coming on.