The ultimate Tea thread?

[Blmpkn]

Im trying to be more healthy.

A HUGE part of that for me personally is decreasing my sugar intake by an absolutely astronomical amount. For referance..I added up the grams of sugar I'd ingest in a day awhile ago and it seriously blew my mind.

I was drinking close to.. if not OVER an ENTIRE POUND of sugar a day. Simply embarrassing.. really. Hit me right in the feels... and it should be considered a medical anomaly how I manage to stay around 220lbs body weight and not balloon to 300+. It's also a miracle that my teeth are all still firmly planted in my face.


My new muse has been hot teas.

My routine lately has been 2 bags of the fruit zinger and a bag of some (unpictured) ginger green tea in my 32oz yeti to take me through the mornings.. admittedly with a DASH of sugar and a bit of raw honey..

..And a trio of the sleepy time bags with a bit of raw honey at night before bed.

I have done the math out on how much sugar I'm getting with thus method... but its miles below what I was ingesting before

I'd really like to find something like the fruit zinger that has caffeine in it so I can forego adding the bag of the ginger stuff... but the place I do groceries at doesn't have the best selection. I'm not opposed to ordering online.. does anyone have any favorites?

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

I'm pretty sure black tea has caffeine.

 

[JoshT]

I can;t say I match you on the consumption, but I was close.

Sweet tea was my go-to drink. Back before being diagnosed with high blood sugar I would drink 2-3 40oz sweet teas at Zaxby's per sitting and I would do that almost anywhere. Zaxby's was about the highest sugar concentration I drank, but my home made tea wasn't too far behind at about 2 cups of sugar per gallon. After the diagnosis I didn't drink sweet tea for almost a year.

I tried the herbal teas and green teas, but I can safely say I'm a black tea drinker. It's either "sweet" tea, or no tea for me. I've found that the Lipton or Luizanne pre sweatened treas work well for me. They use sugar alternatives and I like the taste when I make it a little stronger than suggested. I think recepie on both calls for 2 bags per half gallon, but the flavor is too weak IMO, 3 bags makes it just right.

I'm pretty sure black tea has caffeine.

Yes it does. Atleast the ones I've looked at and drank do.

 

[rusty ol ranger]

Yall are lightweights.

Before i did my wilford brimley impression and got diagnosed with type 2 diabeeetus i was chugging 1/2 gallon of pepsi a day. At least.

As far as tea goes....i love the unsweet iced tea. Goldpeak in the bottles is the best IMO

 

[JoshT]

Yall are lightweights.

Before i did my wilford brimley impression and got diagnosed with type 2 diabeeetus i was chugging 1/2 gallon of pepsi a day. At least.

As far as tea goes....i love the unsweet iced tea. Goldpeak in the bottles is the best IMO

Lightweight? You might want to go do some maths.

1/2 gallon of Pepsi has about a cup of sugar. A 1/2 gallon of sweet tea I made at home had the same. The sweet tea I drank when eating out had at least as much, usually more.

Two of my most frequent stops for eating out were Zaxby's and Bojangles, and their teas tasted like syrup compared to what I made at home. I'm in GA, we drink SWEET tea. It was nothing for me to drink a 1/2 plus gallon by myself per sitting.

Take your half gallon of Pepsi and go sit down somewhere. Replace that with Mountain Dew or my former favorite, Sunkist, which is actually higher still then we can talk about being lightweights.

Yeah, is it any surprise that I was diagnosed as type 2 as well.

Can't stand gold peak. When restaurants started switching to that it curbed my tea drinking a lot. I've tried the bottled too, can't drink it either.

 

[rusty ol ranger]

Lightweight? You might want to go do some maths.

1/2 gallon of Pepsi has about a cup of sugar. A 1/2 gallon of sweet tea I made at home had the same. The sweet tea I drank when eating out had at least as much, usually more.

Two of my most frequent stops for eating out were Zaxby's and Bojangles, and their teas tasted like syrup compared to what I made at home. I'm in GA, we drink SWEET tea. It was nothing for me to drink a 1/2 plus gallon by myself per sitting.

Take your half gallon of Pepsi and go sit down somewhere. Replace that with Mountain Dew or my former favorite, Sunkist, which is actually higher still then we can talk about being lightweights.

Yeah, is it any surprise that I was diagnosed as type 2 as well.

Can't stand gold peak. When restaurants started switching to that it curbed my tea drinking a lot. I've tried the bottled too, can't drink it either.

Im not a fan of sweet tea. Really at all. Which is weird being of southern roots.

I cant stand thick syrupy drinks. Lol

 

[sgtsandman]

Green tea actually has more caffeine in it than coffee. It has antioxidants in it, which is supposed to promote better health. It's a bit of a bitter tea though. So, you'll want to sweeten it with honey or sugar. Honey has a lot of additional benefits to it and doesn't have the negatives that sugar can have. So, that's what I use.

I do one travel mug of that in the morning and a couple of regular sized mugs of coffee. That's usually all I need and the tea seems to do a better job of waking my brain up on the drive into work than the coffee does.

 

[superj]

i like black (or actually red) tea. i really do not like the taste of green tea though its supposed to be more healthy.

i drink one big 32oz sweet tea each morning. if i have it after 2pm, i cannot sleep at night because the sugar keeps me up.

i don't mind drinking unsweet tea but lately when they ask what kind of tea, i just automatically say sweet with no ice. i was doing good for a few years and would just say unsweet with no ice and i was fine.

when i was in high school, i had never heard of sweet tea. you couldn't get it in cali or texas at restaurants. when i went in the army, i got stationed in georgia in 95. every place i went to, they had sweet tea and you had to ask for unsweet. now, cali and texas, you have to ask for unsweet. very few places serve unsweet, and have sugar or sweetener anymore.

 

[Uncle Gump]

I think they had it right back in Boston when they tossed all the tea in the harbor. The only tea I can stomach is the sweetened flavored stuff... and that's probably worse then my normal Diet Mtn Dew. I usually drink three bottles a day and about 4 mugs of coffee (w/cream and sugar) in the morning. Water for taking motrin or my vitamins... and a bottle of water when I go to bed.

I just got myself a 64 oz insulated stainless drink bottle. I plan to fill it with ice and water in the morning and just have it with me all day. Gonna try to trim back a bit on morning coffee and limit my diet dew to one at dinner time. Gonna be a big change as some of you know. I'm just gonna try to head off some of the health problems before they find their way into my daily life.

Sorry I have no recommendation for what tea to drink... but this kinda fits into the narrative going on here.

 

[bilbo]

I enjoy unsweetened iced tea with a little lemon. Sometimes I'll lightly sweeten it. I'm lucky in that I'm not super into sweets except for chocolate. My problem is I'll devour massive quantities of just about anything else and lately I've been rather lazy. I've never been able to do hot teas so unfortunately I'm not much help there. My wife likes the Sleepytime tea and drinks it often. Maybe replace the green tea in the morning with a black tea and see how it goes? I think the black teas have higher caffeine than green.

I went to a water park with my son and they wouldn't let me on most of the slides due to being over 250lb. That was kind of a wake up call, so I started commuting by bike to try to improve my health a bit. I used to ride bike and run a ton but a mix of COVID, my Mom getting sick, and moving to a place where just getting the mail results in my getting sweaty kind of demotivated me. I've had to learn to embrace the sweat and just deal with it, and I've been rebuilding my mileage again just trying to recapture the happiness that long morning bike rides used to bring me. I’ve been able to experience some amazing things just because I chose to ride a bike instead of sleep in including beautiful scenery, a bald eagle dogfight, and most recently a sunrise over Lake Okeechobee.

Keep fighting the good fight!

 

[gw33gp]

If you are looking for a tea that has some sweetness to it without sugar or sugar substitutes, Good Earth Sweet and Spicy Original is the one to look for. I order it online. It is black tea with other natural stuff in it that makes it sweet and spicy. There is no sugar of any kind or sugar substitute in it. If you want something as sweet as sweet tea, it will not work for you. It is not cheap, but I really like it. I use it both as hot tea and iced tea.

I used to hear tea has more caffeine than coffee. I did some research and found tea has about half the caffeine that coffee has, and green tea has a little less than black tea.

Honey is still sugar. It is not as refined as sugar but still has most of the bad effects on health that table sugar has. The good thing about honey is it has many good health benefits that sugar does not have. I normally use honey when I want to sweeten something but still use it sparingly because of the unhealthy nature of its sugar content.

 

[fastpakr]

Green tea actually has more caffeine in it than coffee. It has antioxidants in it, which is supposed to promote better health. It's a bit of a bitter tea though. So, you'll want to sweeten it with honey or sugar. Honey has a lot of additional benefits to it and doesn't have the negatives that sugar can have. So, that's what I use.

I do one travel mug of that in the morning and a couple of regular sized mugs of coffee. That's usually all I need and the tea seems to do a better job of waking my brain up on the drive into work than the coffee does.

Black coffee typically has about twice the caffeine as green tea.

 

[superj]

I enjoy unsweetened iced tea with a little lemon. Sometimes I'll lightly sweeten it. I'm lucky in that I'm not super into sweets except for chocolate. My problem is I'll devour massive quantities of just about anything else and lately I've been rather lazy. I've never been able to do hot teas so unfortunately I'm not much help there. My wife likes the Sleepytime tea and drinks it often. Maybe replace the green tea in the morning with a black tea and see how it goes? I think the black teas have higher caffeine than green.

I went to a water park with my son and they wouldn't let me on most of the slides due to being over 250lb. That was kind of a wake up call, so I started commuting by bike to try to improve my health a bit. I used to ride bike and run a ton but a mix of COVID, my Mom getting sick, and moving to a place where just getting the mail results in my getting sweaty kind of demotivated me. I've had to learn to embrace the sweat and just deal with it, and I've been rebuilding my mileage again just trying to recapture the happiness that long morning bike rides used to bring me. I’ve been able to experience some amazing things just because I chose to ride a bike instead of sleep in including beautiful scenery, a bald eagle dogfight, and most recently a sunrise over Lake Okeechobee.

View attachment 110769

Keep fighting the good fight!

Nice bike. I need to start doing morning rides too. I do about 40 miles after work on tursday and thursday, but thats it. I use to do 120 miles a week and rode 5 to 6 days a week

 

[Blmpkn]

I'm just looking for baby steps in the health department really lol. I've always had a mean sweet tooth.. got that from my mother.

While I still put a *little* sugar and a dollop of raw honey in my 2x daily teas... I'm sure the overall sugar content is considerably less than the sugarbomb coffees I'd get from dunks in the morning.. XL hot caramel swirl/blueberry xtra cream reg sugar lol. They're damn good.. but both diabetuus and big fat fckery run in the family so.. should probably start being a little more conscientious about what I'm consuming.

The herbal teas need the least sweetener for me personally.. especially the fruity ones as they have their own inherent level of sugar content already.. but the lack of caffeine kills me. I think I'll try out some of the good earth sweet and spicy reccomended by @gw33gp and see where that takes me.

 

[Eddo Rogue]

Green tea is the most pure as far as lack of caffiene/sugars.

Things naturally containing sugar is not as unhealthy as things made with sugar added.

Oolong tea is pretty healthy too.

I drink strong coffee, and prefer black teas like earl grey or cardamom. Caffeine dont bother me.

That sleepytime stuff knocks me out....it contains valerian root, a natural source of melatonin.

I use honey instead of sugar as a sweetener.