Suggested Tea or Other Beverages

[Meowzer]

So I am soon going to be making a bit of a lifestyle change..And part of that is I am going to no longer be drinking soda...Partially because of said change, and the other because I really won't be able to afford it... So I have been looking for something cheap to drink that is not horribad for me..And tea came to mind..My only problem is I have never found any tea I really really enjoy..So if anyone has any suggestions I would appreciate it..I am not a fan of any green tea I have found yet...

Any other beverage suggestions along these lines would be welcomed.

[Eothr]

try peppermint tea. it's a sweet black tea that tastes good with a bit of sugar.

[Navarre]

Even teas have caffeine and elements you don't need. Water is the way to go. There is no drink healthier for you.

I personally have to make myself drink water. It isn't very enticing. But I find it better if it's really cold.

Also, there are flavored, non-carbonated waters that could be good. Just read carefully for sugar content and too many artificial additives.

Possibly the product Mio might be good. There are some additives so I'm not recommending you use it, only investigate it.

Also, things like low-sodium V-8 are good for you. One glass will account for 1/4-1/2 of the vegetable content you should have each day.

Skip sodas, dairy products, energy drinks, coffee, tea, and anything high in sugar and additives such as kool-aid. This includes even natural fruit juices.

Glad to hear you're making a great change for yourself, Meowzer.   

[Gaumer]

Even teas have caffeine and elements you don't need. Water is the way to go. There is no drink healthier for you.

I personally have to make myself drink water. It isn't very enticing. But I find it better if it's really cold.

Also, there are flavored, non-carbonated waters that could be good. Just read carefully for sugar content and too many artificial additives.

Possibly the product Mio might be good. There are some additives so I'm not recommending you use it, only investigate it.

Also, things like low-sodium V-8 are good for you. One glass will account for 1/4-1/2 of the vegetable content you should have each day.

Skip sodas, dairy products, energy drinks, coffee, tea, and anything high in sugar and additives such as kool-aid. This includes even natural fruit juices.

Glad to hear you're making a great change for yourself, Meowzer.   

THIS!! So much this!

Its all moderation. I have a coke maybe once every two weeks or so, along with other drinks now and again, but its all about the H2O, baby!!

If you are going to go with tea, I like Twinings http://www.twinings.com
The thing with tea though is you just have to try stuff until you find what you like. It may be a black tea with sugar and milk (my fav) or a Lady Grey with cream or honey (I also dig those) or a straight up green tea (the best for you, from my readings).

Nav is all right on the higher sugar stuff, but again, its all in moderation. I think variety is the spice of life so already today I have had, my usually 32 oz of water, a black tea, a green tea (plain) and a chocolate milk

Yeah, good to hear someone doing proactive change. I used to drink nothing but coke, breakfast to bedtime, with too much coffee in between and kicking those habits had a noticeable difference.

[Eothr]

Even teas have caffeine and elements you don't need. Water is the way to go. There is no drink healthier for you.

I personally have to make myself drink water. It isn't very enticing. But I find it better if it's really cold.

Also, there are flavored, non-carbonated waters that could be good. Just read carefully for sugar content and too many artificial additives.

Possibly the product Mio might be good. There are some additives so I'm not recommending you use it, only investigate it.

Also, things like low-sodium V-8 are good for you. One glass will account for 1/4-1/2 of the vegetable content you should have each day.

Skip sodas, dairy products, energy drinks, coffee, tea, and anything high in sugar and additives such as kool-aid. This includes even natural fruit juices.

Glad to hear you're making a great change for yourself, Meowzer.   

THIS!! So much this!

Its all moderation. I have a coke maybe once every two weeks or so, along with other drinks now and again, but its all about the H2O, baby!!

If you are going to go with tea, I like Twinings http://www.twinings.com
The thing with tea though is you just have to try stuff until you find what you like. It may be a black tea with sugar and milk (my fav) or a Lady Grey with cream or honey (I also dig those) or a straight up green tea (the best for you, from my readings).

Nav is all right on the higher sugar stuff, but again, its all in moderation. I think variety is the spice of life so already today I have had, my usually 32 oz of water, a black tea, a green tea (plain) and a chocolate milk

Yeah, good to hear someone doing proactive change. I used to drink nothing but coke, breakfast to bedtime, with too much coffee in between and kicking those habits had a noticeable difference.

 

... I drink 10 canned sodas...in about 4 hours...almost everyday...

[Navarre]

... I drink 10 canned sodas...in about 4 hours...almost everyday...

You now have the acidic blood of a Xenomorph.

[Gaumer]

Yup, that's a problem No offense.

While you are kicking the can of course watch out for the caffeine withdrawals but also look for not enough phosphorus, or other things, in your diet. A can of Coke has 17mg of Phosphorus per 100ml of Coke, for example, and it became a real issue for me as I tried to kick the can. Your soft drink of choice may contain other things that can become an issue once you stop getting them in the soda. Just some things to think about.

[sliksham]

I drink a ton of water, but I always add a small amount of cordial (sugar free) to make the experience a whole lot more pleasant.
That and a mug of English Breakfast Tea to get me going on these dark and freezing winter mornings.

As the others have said, that much Soda is not a good thing. Do your friends have to tap your head to stop you from exploding when you have a slight bump?

[Forresst]

I LOVE tea!  My personal favourite is Twinings Earl Grey.  If you try an Earl Grey tea and don't like it, give a couple of other brands a try.  Sometimes the flavour of bergamot changes a little from brand to brand, so while I like Twinings, for example, I can't stand Lipton.

If you're into fruit flavours, there's a whole bunch of really nice fruit-flavour tisanes (which is basically just a shorter way to say herbal tea) by Celestial Seasonings.  Last time I looked, they had blueberry, peach, raspberry, I think they had strawberry and all sorts of other spice varieties.  If you like licorice they have a GREAT licorice spice one.  In fact, if you're looking for a tea-ish beverage with the most interesting flavour varieties, I'd almost recommend picking up some of the Celestial Seasonings variety packs.  They're all over grocery stores.

So that's tisanes, really... for black teas, I like Earl Grey, English Breakfast and Irish Breakfast.  I believe any tea with breakfast in the name is a little bit stronger in caffeine, although none of them have as much as coffee.  I find irish breakfast to have a little more earthy a flavour than english breakfast.  Otherwise, almost all black teas are derivative of two basic flavour profiles: Orange Pekoe and Ceylon, so give those a shot, you might just like the straight stuff.  I'm more a Ceylon kinda girl.

For green teas, there's gunpowder green that you might like, while Oolong is technically green tea, but it's been fermented so it looks and tastes like black tea.  Matcha refers to green tea prepared specifically to be a powder, and doesn't handle really hot water very well.

Finally, there's white tea, which is relatively expensive but nice and delicate with a very subtle taste. 

Oh and let me leave you with a little tip:  the lighter the colour of tea you're drinking, the lower the water temperature has to be to avoid burning it while boiling and turning it bitter.  If you're drinking green or white tea, DON'T BOIL IT.  What I do is I stick it in my coffeepot.  It sounds silly, but the temperature a coffeepot gets is just a hair under boiling and is actually much better for tea.  If you have one of them fancy coffee machines, even better!  You can set the temperature to the lowest setting and guarantee it will be the best quality of tea you can get.

[Eothr]

You now have the acidic blood of a Xenomorph.

Not quite yet...

Yup, that's a problem No offense.

While you are kicking the can of course watch out for the caffeine withdrawals but also look for not enough phosphorus, or other things, in your diet. A can of Coke has 17mg of Phosphorus per 100ml of Coke, for example, and it became a real issue for me as I tried to kick the can. Your soft drink of choice may contain other things that can become an issue once you stop getting them in the soda. Just some things to think about.

I live with my parents, who only purchase diet sodas...which I know are worse...

As the others have said, that much Soda is not a good thing. Do your friends have to tap your head to stop you from exploding when you have a slight bump?

no friends to remind me of bad habits... ...live at home, but parents work while I tend to farm...

[Gaumer]

I LOVE tea!  My personal favourite is Twinings Earl Grey.  If you try an Earl Grey tea and don't like it, give a couple of other brands a try.  Sometimes the flavour of bergamot changes a little from brand to brand, so while I like Twinings, for example, I can't stand Lipton.

If you're into fruit flavours, there's a whole bunch of really nice fruit-flavour tisanes (which is basically just a shorter way to say herbal tea) by Celestial Seasonings.  Last time I looked, they had blueberry, peach, raspberry, I think they had strawberry and all sorts of other spice varieties.  If you like licorice they have a GREAT licorice spice one.  In fact, if you're looking for a tea-ish beverage with the most interesting flavour varieties, I'd almost recommend picking up some of the Celestial Seasonings variety packs.  They're all over grocery stores.

So that's tisanes, really... for black teas, I like Earl Grey, English Breakfast and Irish Breakfast.  I believe any tea with breakfast in the name is a little bit stronger in caffeine, although none of them have as much as coffee.  I find irish breakfast to have a little more earthy a flavour than english breakfast.  Otherwise, almost all black teas are derivative of two basic flavour profiles: Orange Pekoe and Ceylon, so give those a shot, you might just like the straight stuff.  I'm more a Ceylon kinda girl.

For green teas, there's gunpowder green that you might like, while Oolong is technically green tea, but it's been fermented so it looks and tastes like black tea.  Matcha refers to green tea prepared specifically to be a powder, and doesn't handle really hot water very well.

Finally, there's white tea, which is relatively expensive but nice and delicate with a very subtle taste. 

Oh and let me leave you with a little tip:  the lighter the colour of tea you're drinking, the lower the water temperature has to be to avoid burning it while boiling and turning it bitter.  If you're drinking green or white tea, DON'T BOIL IT.  What I do is I stick it in my coffeepot.  It sounds silly, but the temperature a coffeepot gets is just a hair under boiling and is actually much better for tea.  If you have one of them fancy coffee machines, even better!  You can set the temperature to the lowest setting and guarantee it will be the best quality of tea you can get.

Tea people FTW!!

But caffeine content can be higher in tea than in coffee. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/caffeine/AN01211

It all depends.

[Navarre]

I live with my parents, who only purchase diet sodas...which I know are worse...

You know an excuse without me pointing it out to you.

Do your parents have running water in their house? Do they have a refrigerator?

No excuses, my friend. No excuses.

[Gaumer]

I live with my parents, who only purchase diet sodas...which I know are worse...

You know an excuse without me pointing it out to you.

Do your parents have running water in their house? Do they have a refrigerator?

No excuses, my friend. No excuses.

Yup, yup.

Distilled bottled water (my fav) is less than a buck a gallon at my local grocery stores. I'm am not a fan of the taste of my tap water.

[Navarre]

Distilled bottled water (my fav) is less than a buck a gallon at my local grocery stores. I'm am not a fan of the taste of my tap water.

Yeah, tap water's not too tasty. But, as I'd mentioned earlier, it's better cold.

A distillation device is inexpensive and worth it. But even tap water is better than anything that sizzles when you open it.

[Slappy]

Grey Goose
Ketel One
Chopin

Macallan
Glenlivit
Dalmore

Guinness
Guinness
Guinness

Once you drink that, you don't need any other liquids...   EVER!