Friday, January 8, 2010

The Gloriousness of Tea!

Hello friends:

Once upon a time, long, long, ago, I drank coffee. I had a special relationship with coffee. It was my moon, my sun, and my stars. I drank coffee with breakfast. I drank coffee after lunch. I drank coffee after dinner. I drank coffee in between those meals. I could tell the differences in the different Starbucks roasts. I would sit in coffee shops and drink cup after cup until I couldn't even see straight from all of the caffeine. And then I would crash.

Yes, my friends, I had a coffee problem. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't focus. I couldn't even finish a thought in my head. And, after an especially grueling day of marathon coffee-drinking, I even had a fluttering in my heart. That is when I knew I had to kick that terrible, terrible habit.

So for two days, two, horrible, dreadful, godawful days, I detoxed from my relationship with coffee. It was the worst weekend of my life. I had a headache that originated somewhere in my spine and radiated through my legs before pushing itself out of my eyes. And I could...not...move. (Those ellipses are meant to show you how slow I was moving) I had previously planned a bbq for some friends of mine from school, so I couldn't cancel it. I thought I was holding it together pretty well until one of my friends later recalled to me of that night that "you just looked so sad."

Well, I was sad. I was sad that I was not drinking coffee.

So, I had to learn to replace the old habits with better habits, since I was clearly not responsible enough to drink coffee. I started drinking tea. I was able to limit my tea intake. And I am happy to say, almost two years later, that I have stuck with the tea.

Here's the happy ending-- tea is amazing!! There are so many more varieties and flavors of tea than coffee and it is so much better for you. I'm telling you this long, drawn-out story about tea because my friend Julie and I discovered a tea shop here in the Dash that has taken my tea drinking to a whole new level. Here is a link- I warn you that the website is not great....http://www.angelinasteas.com/

btw- how cute is that tea set on the homepage?

This guy has no fewer than a billion varieties of loose tea, and they are cheap-ish. I got 6 oz. of Russian Earl Grey for 9 bucks! And he is wonderful because if you go in there and say, for example, "I like green teas that are minty and citusy," he finds the right tea for you and he is spot on. So when all of you friends from various, far-flung cities come to see me, I am taking you there.

Another cool thing about today is that my friend Jody, who I work with, and who I think may be reading this too! likes to trade recipes. Today she brought in a recipe for black bean brownies!! No joke!!! And I looked at the recipe and it looks like they could be pretty good-- I think the black beans will have a cakey consistency like regular brownies, but there is hardly any flour or sugar in them and they have, like, 1/3 less calories. I think Jody is going to try to make them first and see how they are and if they are amazing, I will post the recipe for everyone sho we can all indulge our healthy sweet teeth.

P.S. Thundersnowbaby, you are the coolest! Thanks for commenting so nicely!

1 comment:

  1. So I visited Jen this weekend and she took me to Angelina's tea place... and holy granolie - she wasn't kidding! This is such an incredible store. I didn't know there were that many kinds of tea in the world! I got Night of the Iguana Chocolate Chai, which, after I added 10 sugar packets (or was it 12, Jen?) and some half and half, tasted like spicey white chocolate... mmmmm!! So I'm here to tell anyone who reads this that the next time you visit Winston, you MUST check out this store! Thanks, Jen!

    ReplyDelete