Ordered to stop drinking caffeine. Now what?
I searched the forum for this but didn’t really find an answer as I’m a special snowflake and they didn’t apply to me :) and all so sorry if this is a common question but I am quite new to the tea thing and yes, am one of those people who tends to like flavoured ones only (so far) so there’s that factor.
That said, I received the horrible news today that I need to cut out all caffiene from my system so there goes my cupboard of mainly black teas. Now I know I can have herbals and roobios but there lies the problem. I’m not a roobios fan even with flavoured ones.
So I thought I’d google decaf black teas but I see conflicting reports on how much caffiene is actually in them so I doubt I can have them too. Which is sad (I’m in mourning here).
Anyway, what I don’t know is if there is anyway I can have some sort of earl grey like tea. It is my favourite and I will really miss it. Is there a herbal out there like it or a decaf version where the company can guarantee how much caffiene is actually in it?
Any recommendations for tasty herbals (sweet, non floral mostly) would help as well.
Help a lowly tea drinker out?
First of all, you have my sympathy! If I were in your situation (as someone who is also not that big on rooibos), I would be looking into honeybush. 52Teas does something absolutely amazing with them. I love the Pina Colada, the Cinnamon Roll is fabulous, and I just got the banana one (the name is nice and funny, but some don’t like it in normal conversation….my kids think it is hilarious). I am not sure how I would get my hands on Earl Grey honeybush since you are in Canada…….I would have gone through Ovation Teas and custom blended one if I had to, but I don’t think they ship to you at this point. There also might be options for rooibos that don’t taste so rooibos-ey, too. I was kind of thinking along the lines of Herbal Hot Cinnamon Spice at Harney….it is so powerfully cinnamon that the rooibos base really just adds to the mouth feel rather than the flavor. I do think David’s has some options to try out in the herbal arena, too.
I don’t think I’ve met anyone who was ordered to drop every trace of caffeine. No chocolate, no true tea? Egads. I’m so sorry!
As for what you might like to drink now…How do you feel about mint? Berries? Chamomile? There are lots of non-tea teas (I have quite a few, all things considered) you just have to try them and see how you feel. If you’re in Canada and have access to a David’s Tea you could try some of their blends. They tend to be very strongly flavoured, and I rarely if ever notice a rooibos taste (though I don’t hate it). Of course, not all of their herbals have rooibos either. Have you tried green rooibos or honeybush? If neither of those float your boat there are still tisanes.
I have enjoyed a number of samples from Fusion Tea Room (based in the States, but will ship to Canada) and they focus on Herbals – although you’ll obviously want to skip any yerba mate blends. They do a free samples for reviews sort of program if you contact them on their website perhaps you could work that out. Joy’s Teaspoon (also in the States but ships to Canada) has a number of delicious herbals that I’ve enjoyed – she also used to send off 2 or 3 free samples upon request, I don’t know if she still does that though. Other than that, I think most of the companies I have used I bought true tea from.
And SimplyJen – you’re right. Ovation doesn’t ship to us, yet! : (
oh dear, no caffeine?? how about mateine? the stuff found in yerba mate… I had a similar injuction not long ago and mate saved me :)
Also, I found a tea that tastes like green with some extra sugar but is really an herbal, it’s called Jiaogulan
My empathy goes out to you! Is this permanent, or will you be able to have caffeine again one day ?
Hm, didn’t know about this mateine business. I had ready things lately indicating that there is caffeine in mate as well.
Mateine is caffeine. It was a term used in the old days, like “theine” for tea, before it was proved to be caffeine. The old terms were dropped when it was found that they were all the same molecule.
The doctor said I need to cut it out for at least 6 months and then cause I whined so much about the lack of tea (and my doctor is British, which helped I think) he said I could reevaluate then.
There is debate about whether Mateine and Caffeine is indeed the same… since they found that the stimulant found in Yerba has a slightly different DNA structure. This fact however, is refuted by some and thus leads me to question it’s validity. I choose to believe it because even a placebo effect can be helpful so either way I win :)
I find that it hits me with a much gentler, more wakeful approach- sans the jitters and is known for this effect.
http://www.miyerbamate.com/content/Yerba_Mate_Mateine_Not_Caffeine.htm
You mentioned you’d never had honeybush, so definitely play around with that. Hazelnut is my favorite flavored one, but it makes a mean chai as well. Since you like Earl Grey, try out a Rooibos with bergamot. It’s not the same, obviously, but the rooibos is earthy enough that it balences well and over time, you may come to love it as much or more than the original Earl. :-)
“Orzo” is another lesser-known herbal that is rich, malty, and heavy. It has body more like coffee even than black tea, but is made only from roasted barley. This is the one I got hooked on a while back, but there are other flavors http://steepster.com/teas/lupicia/8291-orzo-caramel-and-honey
There’s the “myth” of removing caffeine by infusing tea for 30 seconds, tossing that out and then brewing as usual, but it’s largely considered false by studies like this: http://www.elmwoodinn.com/about/caffeine.html
However, the statistics do seem to show some amount of caffeine is removed…
Yes, I’ve heard conflicting information on that. I posted at another general question place about my loss of tea and people brought up this fact. Thanks for actual links about the study.
Thanks for the info. Jason. I had always believed that as well. Good to have scientific evidence to get to the truth.
Thanks for the tips everyone. I’m adding stuff to my list to try out and while the loss of caffiene is devastating (i never thought of no chocholate either EGAD!) it will at least give me a reason to try a whole bunch of places. Always up for tea shopping :)
It all depends how much caffeine you should really have. For most people, decaf coffee would be allowed, so some small amounts of chocolate and decaf tea should be ok as well. You should get more info from your doctor. Decaf tea is really low in caffeine, but it does depend on how the leaves are processed. If you can get a number a milligrams to stay below, you could write to companies and find out how much caffeine is in their decaf tea.
Just because you can’t have caffeine doesn’t mean you can’t have amazing herbal tea :) check out our selection: https://www.theleafmethod.com/herbal.html
Pickwick and Twinings both make great decaf black teas. Especially Twinings…mmm.
I’m absolutely in love with their decaf Earl Grey and Irish breakfast teas. I can’t drink caffeine either thanks to my anxiety issues, and decaf’s hasn’t agitated it yet so far.
I don’t think there is an easily feasible way of entirely removing caffeine from tea (or coffee) without ruin the stuff.
But, there is a whole world of herbal drinks. A friend of mine became completely intolerant of caffeine due to health conditions from a few years ago. But later she told me that since then, she has focused on herbal teas and learned a lot about herbs that she hadn’t even known their existence before.
My wife can’t have caffeine, so I can’t share any of my teas with her :( She drinks mostly herbals. Camomile seeming to be her fav. She also avoids chocolate, tylonal and a bunch of other stuff. She does drink Tetley decaf without issue. We keep a pitcher of it around all the time. I agree with inhumanundead Twinings decaf is not too shabby.
Login or sign up to leave a comment.