How I have my cuppa/s: I start the day with a (home-made) double-shot latte, and get through about 5 mugs (~300ml) of tea and/or coffee daily, usually more coffee than tea, both caffeinated, with milk, and without sugar or any other sweetener. I also often have a mug of cocoa as a nightcap, made with cocoa powder and milk and unsweetened.
The tea is loose-leaf black, from online suppliers such as tealeaves.com.au, and brewed in a large teapot. The coffee is either espresso or plunger, not instant. We have our own grinder and use supermarket-bought coffee beans. The cocoa is just plain cocoa - not ‘drinking chocolate’.
Caffeine can prevent me from sleeping if I have tea or coffee after late afternoon.
Dilmah Extra Strength tea with breakfast & lunch, white & 1/4 tsp sugar. Hot choccy before bed, made with straight milk, unsweetened, Cadbury Cafe Blend.
While I love coffee, I definitely drink more tea and will often have 2-3 cups per day, usually a mix of green and black. I tend to have black tea with milk now but I also occasionally will have it without milk. I also drink herbal infusions especially at night or before breakfast after reading that you shouldn’t have caffeine first thing in the morning.
I drink Madura Premium Blend. Originally tea bags but now using leaf infusers. It is a cross between a tea bag and loose leaf tea. Dearer but I enjoy it. I have it with milk, no sugar.
A little trivia on coffee/tea drinkers:
According to the World Population Review, Finland has the highest consumption of coffee per capita of any other nation. Coffee became popular in the Nordic countries after King Charles XII of Sweden acquired a taste for it when staying in Turkey.
Italy and Brazil are down the list after the Scandinavian countries and Canada.
In Turkey it is Tea that’s an important part of the Turkish culture and the most frequently consumed hot drink.
'…the art of preparing and serving tea encourages conversation…the tea itself -warm comforting- inspires a feeling of…trust that fosters shared confidences… By Emilie Barnes.
The following is a generalisation of course, but individuals have been analysed according to their coffee or tea preferences:
Coffee drinkers: on the go, result driven, creative, introverts comfortable with their own company.
Tea drinkers: reflective nature, like to interact and network, extroverts.
There’s rituals in tea making that promote socialising while sharing a cuppa.
Coffee drinkers are usually quite happy to be energised by caffeine while multitasking?
Or cultural. Having lived in tea origin, China, tea ceremonies allow one to gain an appreciation of the leaf and its flavour. It is also a cultural experience.
In a standard mug I use 2 teaspoons of decaffeinated instant coffee, one small sweetener then add fresh milk ( full cream or hi-lo) . Stir well and then pop into microwave for 95 second on high. Stir again and enjoy a delicious latte - but I only have this after dinner, so that I can sleep! Plus ensures that I get some natural calcium.
My favourite tea is Orange Pekoe, which once was readily available either loose leaf or in tea bags. Colesworth et al seem to have stopped stocking it. I drink it light, no sugar, so I can actually taste the flavour of the tea rather than have it overwhelmed by tannin.
Always empty the kettle before filling with fresh water. If it is your habit of adding new tap water to old, already boiled water, the hard and indigestible minerals in the water are boiled over and over again which eventually clog up your body. You know what the inside of your kettle looks like?
Not required, it will not make any difference to the long term concentration of minerals in the water of your kettle.
No, the minerals in tea-making water are digested and mainly pass through just like the minerals in food and drink and the water you are drinking without it going through a tea pot.
Not relevant, your body is not a kettle. You body will deal with tannins and solids from tea also. There is no part of you that will have brown scales in it because you didn’t put fresh water in the kettle.
Hard water does make life difficult in several ways (anybody from Adelaide reading?) and I am told one problem is reduced quality of taste in your tea, and you can get increase scale forming in water vessels etc but the way you refill your kettle is not going to fix it.
I read that arteriosclerosis can be problem. There is a story about a female circus performer many years ago who was born and bred in Hot Springs in the USA, known for its very hard water. She was unable to walk due to calcification of her body so he was transported into the circus arena on a gurney. They then proceeded to hammer stakes into her body which she was able tolerate. If the story is true, I wonder how she breathed and I imagine that the lady did not live very long in that state.
Atherosclerosis is the buildup of fats, cholesterol and other substances in and on the artery walls. This buildup is called plaque.
We actually need minerals in our diet, although they must be consumed in a dietary form. IE chemical composition that is able to be taken in through our bodily functions.
If you are hinting that the minerals in hard water might be deposited in your blood vessels that isn’t so. I doubt that matter has reached consensus but I read many articles suggest that hard water may be better for arteriosclerosis rather than worse.
Treating the human body as if was plumbing and in the same way will get clogged up with scale is not useful.
Coffee…Lavazza… one spoon into a filter which has “ears” that overhang a mug, hot water at 98º, with cream. I just don’t like the sugary taste of milk anymore. I only have one every other day. Otherwise its just water for me.
