I successfully cut out caffeine leading up to major surgery so I didn’t have to go through additional withdrawal pain. Now that I’m in recovery for a few weeks I have been introducing tea back into my routine.
After not having caffeine for weeks, I gotta say, holy hoots this stuff has so much energy!
Backing up, I had an overnight stay in the hospital, so they had to feed me a number of awful meals. I was on a liquid diet as my guts were untested in not being glued together from endometriosis. They literally strained my cream of wheat for breakfast. With my meals, I always got a cup of “tea”.
After drinking the steeped cardboard three times, I went home to recover. I had the odd mint or ginger herbal tea, but I continued to not drink tea for weeks. I had a 5lbs lift limit, which all of a sudden meant I couldn’t lift 5 gallon water jugs to fill my kettle. Even my kettle was pushing 5lbs when full.
Finally, I got a water jug pump (it works great!) and swapped kettles. After weeks, I hit recovered enough to feel fine sitting in a regular chair.
I started with something easy to brew but exciting – 2018 Beneath an Emerald Sea from Crimson Lotus Tea. I took the whole cake traveling and it is an excellent tea. Everything makes me tired, so I drank the session and took a nap.
The next day I went harder – I had some instant tea packets, then two breakfast black teas of questionable quality. I completely regret drinking those teas and wished I had something better. That is when caffeine slapped me hard when months ago 8 grams of black tea wouldn’t affect me much. I had destructive levels of energy – moving around more than I should. I”m on completely quarantine, so I was doing endless laps around my kitchen island.
After that crazy hyper experience, Floating Leaves Tea Taman Hongshui became my tea of choice – I’ve been drinking that almost daily as it has chill energy to not make me scale the walls when I’m not allowed to. I’ve thrown in some Bana Tea’s I Still Love You as it’s just a deliciously smooth shou. Emerald Sea, Taman Hongshui, and I Still Love You shou cheered me up and made me feel more normal than anything.
Through this journey at this difficult time in my life, it has really cemented – Life is too short for crap tea. Even for mindless drinking, drink the best and most tasty. If going through the effort to make delicious tea, might as well choose the one that gives experience.
Unfortunately, I have an unexpected bonus round of surgery. I am going to ensure Liptons and I will not meet again.
