teajoteas said

Why is tea your beverage of choice...or is it?

Why is tea your beverage of choice? Or are there are beverages that you prefer to drink over tea? I also read some posts about how tea retailers like to use the health benefit angle as a marketing tool, which seems to turn off many tea drinkers. Does anyone really drink tea primarily for health benefits, or is it more about enjoying the experience, taste, etc., and health benefits are just an added bonus?

43 Replies
Angrboda said

I don’t care one whit about supposed health benefits. This is something that I believe to be majorly hyped up by the industry, because there no such thing as miracle food. Anything that so called miracle food will do, tea included, is something you’ll have covered anyway if you eat a healthy and varied diet. So all the talk about health benefits and what not doesn’t bite on me at all. In fact, if pushed hard enough, it can actually be a pretty big turn-off.

Why is it my beverage of choice? It tastes good. It’s that simple. That really is all there is to it.

Why do I bother nerding it to this degree? Because it’s interesting. For the same reason that some people are interested in wine, beer, whisky, chocolate, cooking, horse riding, football, swimming, gardening, knitting, scrapbooking, music, think up more topics yourself.

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momo said

Health benefits are just an added bonus, but I really don’t care, and it does kind of bore me when companies go on about how tea can help x, y, and z. I drink it because it has such an opportunity to taste like so many different things while not being very expensive. And I think it has a great community of people online, I know coffee people and beer people and there is just an ease to tea drinking that makes it even better, because drinking it means you get to share experiences with others too.

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tperez said

I’m more or less a “drink for the sake of drinking” kind of person too.

Tea is delicious, comes in many different types to choose from depending on what you’re in the mood for, and the moderate caffeine levels in most teas make it something you can drink throughout the day.

Health benefits are mostly just an added bonus for me. I don’t discount them completely, but it seems kind of silly to me to drink tea just for the health benefits. :)

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I’m with the other posters … I drink tea because it tastes good. I don’t really care about the health benefits … that’s more or less a bonus for me, but it isn’t a sell point for me, not something that would sway me. I drink it because I love the stuff, and really, I do think that some tea companies really play up the health benefits a bit too much.

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I drink it because I enjoy it and it taste good. I like the process- the ritual – that goes into making a cup of tea. It’s very soothing.

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Yep I drink it cuz it tastes good too and smells good and looks good to me, it makes me happy.
When I have a cup of Tea, I am Happy
When the cup is empty, I am Sad
When I refill the cup, I am Happy again :)

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I wouldn’t say it’s my beverage of choice; I enjoy a variety of drinks- tea, soda, coffee, lemonade/fruit juices and good old ice water! However, I love savoring the amazing scents and flavors of the different varieties and admiring the visual beauty of the leaves before and after steeping. Drinking tea is a wonderful multi-sensory experience, it’s quite affordable, and it’s not too unhealthy!

I don’t drink tea expecting it to be any magic health potion or cure all. Matcha in particular has a respectable amount of protein, potassium, calcium,fiber, iron, vitamin C and antioxidants – but I drink it because it tastes wonderful and gives me a nice energetic feeling without the acidity or jitters of coffee. Health benefits would be nice but I’m not counting on it. :)

Executive summary: tea is great tasting and fun to drink!

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Sigh. Busy busy busy. I need to start working on Idiot, I do, I do. It’s kind of cool to see how I have entries for about four months now.

I really dislike it when people say “Oh, you drink tea? Good for you, it’s supposed to be really healthy.”

I don’t give a sh*t about tea’s health benefits. It’s so magical, the way a single leaf can taste SO many different ways depending on the way it’s grown and processed afterwards. And it’s all delicious!

It’s something to learn about. It’s a way of life, for me, really. I always have a cup with me. It’s kid of a meditation, in a way, a way to slow down my world and focus in on something – the taste, the heat, the aroma. It forces me to think about things in a way I wouldn’t have ordinarily.

But I mostly just drink it because it’s delicious. There’s a tea for every mood.

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Nik select said

I do care about the health benefits, but mostly they are a bonus. I drink tea because:

- It tastes good
- It’s not actively detrimental to my health/well-being like soda
- Whilst drinking tea I still feel like I am working toward my daily water intake quota
- Green tea and rooibos actually make me feel better, help my complexion, etc.
- It’s in my genes :D

I pretty much drink only tea and fizzy water. Once in a while I’ll have hot chocolate or the rare soda (Bruce Cost’s Fresh Ginger Ale, Boylan’s cane sugar-sweetened Grape soda, Virgil’s root beer, GUS Grapefruit).

momo said

oh gosh have you ever had any of Virgil’s soda on draft? I didn’t even realize soda could be in kegs until this burger place opened up with Abita’s root beer on draft. I try not to drink soda but I cannot resist Virgil’s cherry cream soda when it’s fresh like that.

Nik select said

No, I haven’t. That sounds quite good. =) There’s a “spedial edition” of Virgil’s root beer. It’s my favourite! (And I kinda love the bottle.)
http://www.marineviewbev.com/ecom_img/original-106-145-virgils-root-beer-swing-top.jpg

Babble said

I looooooooove craft soda, especially root beer. I’m still a soda lover but I had to give it up because of all the high-fructose corn syrup. But, I still indulge every now and then.

I’ve never seen Virgil’s on tap, but I have seen Boylan. That was pretty cool.

There was a great soda store in Denver that had over 100 different varieties of soda. Good thing I don’t live there, because I would be in there way more ;)

momo said

All the beer growler stores here try to have at least 1-2 sodas and they’re pretty hard to resist too. We got a quart sized bottle now just for soda if there’s anything good haha. They’re always Abita or Virgil though, I wonder why none of them ever have Boylan ones.

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Lynxiebrat said

Like most others have said in the thread, (But spinned in my own words of course!) The health benefits are icing on the cake but not beneficial to enjoying eating the whole piece of cake. At the moment the hyping up of the health benefits of tea, I just tune out. I’ve been into various New Age stuff most of my life, so I am used to hearing similar spiels ….not saying that Tea is inherently New Age, but that it has a New Age-y side to it.

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