COFFEE OR TEA AND OTHER MAJOR LIFE DECISIONS
I’m not sure if I’m the only one to experience this but every morning I am faced with a hard decision: coffee or tea. Most people are one or the other. They either grew up in a coffee family or a tea family. It’s probably not even a thought. Few experience their first decision of the day that is tied, for me, to nationalism, maturity, insomnia, relationships and one all nighter that nearly took off my stomach lining.
Not all my decisions in life are this strenuous, I can choose breakfast without having to contemplate my life decisions, as I can with any other drink besides of the two BIG ones. Beer or wine, either is good. Alcohol vs. water, I can make a responsible decision on that one. Most of the time.
Here’s the history: I grew up in Calgary (Canada) in a coffee family, specifically a no sugar, milk only type of coffee. So when I started drinking coffee, at the reasonable age of 16, I made my father proud by taking it black. Many happy years of no guilt coffee drinking followed. Until one night in university, my roommate and I decided to pull an all nighter and thus several pots of coffee ensued. Apparently when you’ve had too much coffee and no sleep, your legs start to tingle in a weird, scary way and your stomach feels like it’s eating itself. Thus my coffee years ended.
My roommate was a tea drinker and soon I started dating a Scottish guy, who in typical British fashion, had never even had coffee. So began my tea mornings, still no sugar and I liked it be so steeped it looked like coffee. And you can drink more teas than you can coffee, tea, decafe of course, is even excellent in the evenings. I was living in Britain at the time and even if I had wanted coffee, it only came in instant granule form. So not a tough choice.
Then one day I decided my stomach lining had probably recovered enough and I was back on the coffee but this time with sugar. Sorry Richards family. It was always my first drink and then tea followed after. Working in an office, constant caffeination was a must.
Now that I’ve moved back to Canada and it’s all gone a bit wonky. Also I’m not working so I don’t need the caffeine every other hour. My now Scottish husband will ask if I want tea but my Canadian brain seems to rebel. ‘You’re in Canada now, drink as you’ve been taught’. I understand this makes no rational sense but then if I was a rational person, it wouldn’t be nearly as fun to read me ramble.
So now my decision goes like this; British vs. Canada, Parents vs. Husband, Sleep vs. Insomnia, Roommate vs. Giant Pots of Coffee. If all our cumulative decisions and actions make us who we are, then I still can’t decide if I’m a coffee or a tea person.
But then maybe I’m not the only one obsessing over this, as there is now something called Cofftea. I can’t say it’s any good but at least someone has tried to make morning decisions easier on the over-analytic.
Originally posted - August 14, 2014
