Tea Time: My Favourite Decaf Options for Any Occasion
JANUARY 2023
Morning, afternoon, and night, you can find me drinking one thing: tea! In the more-than-three years since I’ve had coffee, I’ve become quite familiar with many decaf tea options. These are my favourites, in order:
This is my ALL-TIME FAVOURITE tea. I discovered it two years ago when I picked it out from the stack of beautifully-designed Pukka tea boxes at my grocery store. It is incredibly calming, and has the perfect amount of sweetness that hits the palette at the very end of each sip. If you are a fan of peppermint tea, you will probably like this one. Don’t worry – the licorice threw me off, too, but I can assure you that it is not overwhelming in the least.
Ginger
Coming in at a very close second is DIY ginger tea. This is extremely simple to make: microplane (or chop very finely) however much ginger you’d like into a pot or Bodum, fill with boiling water, and let steep for at least 10 mins. Ginger tea is great for the gut, boosts circulation throughout the whole body (it’s even called a “warming spice” in Ayurveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) because it does just that), and will particularly promote healthy skin and digestion. To make it even more soothing, I sometimes like to add lemon and/or honey.
Rooibos and Rose
If you know me, you know that skin health is one of the things I care about the most. Rooibos and rose are two herbs specifically known for their antioxidants and skin-healing properties. The blend that I have, and love, is Upton Tea Imports’ Rooibos Spice Market Blend. It also has ginger, licorice and cardamom which is probably also why I like the taste so much.
The newest to my collection, I discovered this tea when it was gifted to me at the end of 2022. It has some pretty stellar ingredients including anise, fennel, cardamom, and licorice. You’d be hard-pressed to find a tea that I don’t call “soothing,” but this one is especially so first thing in the morning. It has the slight spiciness of anise and cardamom, coupled with the subtle sweetness of fennel and licorice that I love so much.
Dandelion is renowned for boosting liver detoxification; meaning, I will happily have it. Over the years, I have learned that my liver can certainly benefit from some extra TLC: when I used to drink alcohol, which is mainly metabolized by the liver, my skin would breakout immediately; when I came off the birth-control pill, the most intense parts of my acne were on the sides of my face which are the areas that correspond to the liver in TCM; when I began healing my skin, I saw a huge difference when I incorporated celery juice as that helped to cleanse my liver. So, now, I continue to support my liver however I can and dandelion leaf tea is as simple as it gets.
Do you have experiment with different herbs and teas? Let me know in the comments below!
This blog does not contain medical advice.