I’m a tea drinker. I have been since 1993. Prior to that date, I hated tea. It tasted awful and I just didn’t want any…ever. My drink of choice, soda pop. 
I loved soda. And not the diet stuff, the real, full-sugar sodas. I could drink 3 or 4 a day. Back in those days a case of them was only $3.99 so it was easy to always have a stocked refrigerator.
Then I decided I wanted to live until I was 107 years old. In researching how to do this, I discovered that exercise & maintaining a healthy weight were the key to living for a long time. This prompted me to start running, which eventually led to joggling and this blog.
It also prompted me to look for places to reduce calories. The most obvious place, soda pop. At first, I switched to the diet sodas. They tasted terrible. But after a few months, I didn’t mind them so much. Now, I actually prefer diet sodas. That took a lot of years however.
My tea drinking started during my yearly abstinence from soda (lent). Back in those days, I was never terribly religious but I did enjoy the challenge of giving something up for a couple months. When I gave up soda, I replaced it with tea. After 40 days of drinking nothing but tea, I was hooked.
Originally, I drank tea with two packets of sugar. Then I went down to 1 packet. Then to half a packet. Eventually, I just skipped the sugar all together. That is what I drink now.
Black tea. No sugar.
Sometimes I mix it up with green tea or some flavored tea like Earl Grey, English Breakfast, Orange Peko, or Mint tea however, I primarily just stick with black tea.
Benefits of drinking tea
It turns out, this was a good choice because tea has a number of proven health benefits and they’re finding even more.
Here are some of the benefits.
1. Reduced blood pressure
2. Reduced risk of stroke
3. Keeps blood vessels unclogged & flexible
4. Improves bone health
5. Improves cognitive brain functions
6. Might reduce cancer risk
7. Helps you lose weight – If you drink unsweetened tea.
8. Helps you de-stress
And I would add…It’s cheap! Much less expensive than soda.
So, I’m going to continue to drink tea. If living for a long time is important to you, you should consider drinking it too.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
As I am wont to say: I likes my tea the way I likes my women–cold and bitter!
I put away at least a gallon of one type or another of iced tea daily.
No sweeteners! I live north of the Mason-Dixon Line!
I’ve been brewing it about half-decaf for a while now.
Ha ha!
I probably drink about that much tea each day too. Although I do it one bag at a time. It’s almost always caffeinated and I typically get 1 liter from a single tea bag. My philosophy…”If you’ve got brown, you’ve got tea”
You forgot to mention how many cups of tea you can milk from a single tea bag. If you’ve got brown you’ve got tea!
You’re right. I corrected it in the comments though.
Oops! That’s what I get for working from my iPhone. I posted my comment before reading yours.