Hi Tea

shedding and revelations

The story goes like this: there once was a man who was somewhere in his 30s. He is vague about his age because he’s an actress but also because more often than not he cannot remember his actual age. For the last several decades this man has consumed a lot of coffee. Like an unmeasurable amount of the stuff. He always claimed he could go without the dark nectar of the gods but never did test that theory. Until one day he found himself physically out of coffee beans. He couldn’t make his steadfast French press. He couldn’t pour in ridiculously flavored creamer. He couldn’t fully wake up.

As the day went on he drudged through, unsure of how he got into such a predicament. He fought wave after wave of exhaustion. Nevertheless he persevered. By nightfall it dawned on him that he survived 24 hours without his best liquid friend. Hmmm, he thought, how interesting. The next day rolled around and, without having procured coffee beans because our hero often cannot get it together, he once again faced life in the absence of coffee. There were headaches and grogginess and rage but otherwise it was fine. At this point he justified continuing with the no coffee/no caffeine trend since he was already this deep in it. Why not was his thought. An interesting experiment if nothing else.

4 weeks later and our hero has fully transformed into one of those obnoxiously self-righteous tea drinkers. He continues to avoid caffeine so the teas are mostly herbal. However he did get a soy matcha latte from a global coffee shop chain that rhymes with Barfucks. It was incredibly delicious and brightened up his entire afternoon though he strongly doubts the matcha was ceremonial grade.

Perhaps it’s a psychosomatic placebo effect but our hero feels really good with his new life. He’s convinced himself that his energy levels are more consistent throughout the day. He believes it’s actually easier to wake up in the morning without that liquid boost waiting for him. During this month-long detox he hasn’t had any heartburn, not that it was a regular occurrence for him. But still. His anxiety is minimal. Overall he’s feeling good physically.

At present his favorite teas are the Harvest Blend from Trader Joe’s and a Hawaiian Holiday Blend from his Aunt Lani. Our hero is nervous because he’s running low on both and must search out the next great herbal tea!

During this experiment our hero has come to several revelations. The first one should have been obvious but wasn’t until now. There are far more varieties of teas than of coffee. By a lot! There’s mint, chamomile, rooibos, throat coat, green, hibiscus, sleepy time, ginger peach, lemon citrus, jasmine, oolong, berry bliss, African sunrise, and absolutely everything in between. With coffee there’s regular or decaf. Sure you can get nuanced with Sumatran versus Ethiopian versus Nicaraguan but when the coffee is simply a vehicle for synthetic flavored creamers, it doesn’t exactly matter. And variety is the spice of life.

Another revelation is that doing something because you’ve always done it isn’t the best reason to keep doing it. Our hero’s caffeine reset has taught him that habits are simply repeated actions (duh). They aren’t ordained by a higher power. They aren’t woven into strands of DNA. No one is born a coffee drinker. In fact they don’t recommend coffee until at least 2 or 3 years of age. Therefore habits are just actions. And actions are malleable. Many parts of our hero’s daily life are mindless habits. While that isn’t a bad thing, it just might lead to a mindless existence. Because what are we if not the collection of our habits?

The final revelation in this great tea experiment has been that change is always possible. Did our hero need to get off caffeine? It’s debatable. Of all the available vices coffee isn’t necessarily the worst. But the point is that he was able to get off caffeine. And if kicking the caffeine, a previously essential tool of survival, was possible then what else is possible? What other changes can be made in us and around us? What other behaviors can be changed to make us just a tiny bit happier, a tiny bit healthier, a tiny bit more at peace?