How to enjoy tea when you can’t drink much of it
Why I’m Drinking Less Tea
There are many reasons you might find yourself drinking less tea. Here’s mine…
In recent years, normally I enjoy one full tea session a day (about 3g of tea). Sometimes, I creep up to double that. Recently, however, I’ve radically reduced my tea consumption due to an acid reflux flare. Tea is usually mildly to moderately acidic. Also, caffeine can “loosen up your lower esophageal sphincter (LES), a ring of muscle between your esophagus and stomach,” according to the Cleveland Clinic.
So, I’ve worked my way down from the higher end of my caffeine range to less than half a gram a day. I’m sincerely hoping this reduced tea consumption will be a temporary measure and I am consulting with doctors. But, while I’m here, I still want to enjoy drinking less tea.
What Tea Means to Me and Maybe You
I’m imagining tea is important to you because you are reading a tea blog. You could probably guess that tea is important to me because I’m writing this tea blog. It’s much more than the blog, for me, as I share in my About Traci page. So, it’s been an interesting (and rewarding) challenge to consume less tea while keeping the pleasure and mindful engagement with it. I’ll share what’s been working for me so far as I try to enjoy drinking less tea.
How I’m Enjoying Tea Time with Less
Although I can still taste tea, I find myself leaning into some of the things that helped me enjoy teatime when I temporarily lost my sense of smell a few years ago. Using teaware that I particularly love, leaning into the sights, sounds, and touch of the entire tea experience helps! I’ve written about this in more detail in another post, “How to Enjoy Tea When You Can’t Taste.”
What’s different this time–and helping me enjoy drinking less tea–centers on on different teaware choices and steeping style. Three things I’ve noticed are:
- Bowl Tea. Choose a tea that can steep a long time without becoming bitter or astringent. Put a few tea leaves into a tea bowl and allow a long steep. This method gives more flavor than a regularly steeped cup that such a small amount of tea would give. Also, seeing the leaves brings extra pleasure–at least to me.
- Glass Teaware. Like with bowl tea, a glass gaiwan allows me to enjoy the visuals of the tea leaves and somehow enhances the flavor in my weaker-than-usual cup of tea. I’m also doing longer steeps.
- Tiny Tea. If you have any really small teapots–like under 100ml–this is their moment to shine! It helps with your tea-to-water ratio to give you a stronger cup of tea. The twist: these small teapots are usually used for gongfu cha, where the steeps are very short with a high leaf-to-water ratio. When reducing your tea, you essentially make a western style steep (3-5 minutes) in your tiny gongfu teapot. (Hat tip to Sooz of Being Tea who is the first person I heard refer to using less tea in a tiny teapot as “tiny tea.”)
Final Thoughts
One other thing has helped me enjoy drinking less tea and kept me from being sad about drinking less tea–the ability to make and serve tea to other people! Seriously, I guess it could make me sad to make tea that I can’t drink. But, it doesn’t. Instead, it makes me grateful!
Have you been in this situation, Dear Reader? Are any of my suggestions working for you? Have you found other things helpful? You’re warmly invited to share by commenting on this post.