I always love it when a couple of people come into the store, and one of them declines a tea sample because they’re “a coffee drinker.” As if they are prohibited from tasting tea by the Coffee Cops.
I love it even more when they do try it, and they’re surprised how much they like it. That’s because our tea rules.
A few years ago I made a tea formula to help with quitting coffee. And since then, I’ve met a lot of people who do want to quit or cut back for health reasons. Mainly because they find themselves too over stimulated.
So I’ve asked myself, if tea has caffeine too, then how is it not so damaging to the body? Well…here’s what I found out.
Traditional teas, ie. green, black, white, oolong, pu-ehr, typically have less caffeine than coffee does. By a fairly large margin in a lot of cases.
But there is more to it than that. Traditional tea also has a compound called theanine. Theanine is actually calming, so it gently counteracts the caffeine in your tea. That’s why tea is less likely to make you jittery, even if you drink a lot of it.
This is important because being too overstimulated from caffeine over time wears your body out. It interrupts your sleep cycle, messes with your blood sugar, and can sap your energy.
That’s why over time people need more and more coffee, espresso, cappacinos, frappacinos, Al Pacino’s and other super sugary caffeinated drinks to function.
That headache you get when you don't have coffee, or drink too much of it? That’s your blood vessels constricting from the lack of caffeine.
Anyway, the point is, too much stimulation is bad, but its much less likely to happen with tea because of the theanine and lower caffeine content.
The other cool thing about tea is that there's evidence that the combination of theanine and caffeine enhance brain function. That’s why we tea drinkers are so smart. ;-)
There’s lots more to say about tea and how great it is for you. Especially ours.
So spread the love and share this with your friends. And remember, inside of every coffee drinker, is a tea drinker just waiting to be loved. <3