Why I choose Twigs

thoughts on coffee and tea

Yesterday, as I sat down with my small, delicious cup of French Press brewed organic coffee, a sad thing occurred to me. It was time to say goodbye. The good times had once again come to an end and I was left longing for something that no longer was. I let myself sit with the sorrowful knowledge that tomorrow (which is now today) I would be demoting myself to morning tea drinker.

There are people like my dad and husband who can drink coffee everyday. They are part of a club I never felt fully comfortable in - The Coffee Drinkers Club. It’s a special club where caffeine’s side effects are heroically tolerated and accepted. The occasional acid stomach or sleepless night would never (ever) dissuade my husband from coffee. (EVER.) Then again, my husband never really gets those symptoms from coffee. I’m not trying to be sexist here, but coffee seems generally better tolerated by men than women. Am I right?

Replacing my morning coffee with tea recalls a memory of a hippie-esque neighbor of ours who once told us she was a bit jittery that morning because she’d had too much twig tea. Twig tea! Brad and I laughed our asses off about that. But later that day I paused in a private moment of thought. Twig tea. Hmmm. Intriguing. I couldn't help but wonder if I too might be on a twig tea path one day.

That was over 15 years ago. Since then, I’ve hit this familiar wall many times. The place where I realize that coffee is wrecking my life (yes, even one small morning cup can eventually do that to me) and I need to switch to green tea. Yerba Mate is my morning tea of choice - a green tea made from, you guessed it: twigs. While it still has caffeine and can get you jittery if you do more than a cup, it is far milder and kinder to my body than coffee. I appreciate that “Yerb” as we call it, is a bit more robust in flavor than other green teas and can stand up to having a bit of oat milk and honey added in.

By the way, I know someone reading this will right now be gearing up to ask me if I’ve ever tried mushroom coffee. Let me stop you right there. I have. And I have my limits. Those two words - mushroom + coffee - shouldn’t ever be in the same sentence together. DO NOT offer me mushroom coffee under any circumstance. If I am not evolved enough for mushroom coffee, I’m good with that. I can live with myself just fine.

Back to twig tea. Is it a fair replacement for coffee? No. Am I happy about the switch? Hello? How could I be? But the fact of the matter is, I have to choose my own health first. And I will eventually enjoy drinking twig tea more than coffee (I tell myself.) It just takes time. (Evidently more than 15 years.)

Sometimes it’s hard to do the right thing. Especially when every once in a blue moon there’s the complaining and pouty part of me that is resentful that I really can’t do anything fun. No refined sugar, no dairy, no wheat, no alcohol, no coffee and the list goes on. None of it - without an eventual negative consequence. But that’s life, you know. I choose my health. I choose feeling clean and balanced over everything else. (Note: I’m not too fun to party with.)

I’ve tried to really instill this knowledge in my girls throughout their teen years: listen to your body and don’t think you know better than it. A discomforting symptom is a truth to be listened to. Our body speaks to us everyday. All the time. When it’s happy, it’s fairly quiet - simply providing energy alongside a lack of pain and discomfort. When it’s not happy, our body lets us know in a multitude of ways. Whether we listen and attend to the disquiet of our body or not is a purely individual decision.

I often listen and respond to my body’s needs through: sleep and rest, veggies, fruits, herbs, water, exercise, supplements and alone quiet time. Along with - somewhat unrelated side note but I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately - ice packs and heating pads! Both work wonders for everything from a pulled muscle (heat or ice or alternating) to stress headaches (soft ice pack on the neck or forehead) to nerve pain (ice or heat, or alternating.) Used in the right way as pain relievers, ice and heat are truly amazing healers- never discount their power!

Yeah, health is a journey. I devote my life to it, as my family can attest. I find staying healthy interesting and challenging and beautiful. Even when I have to say goodbye to The Coffee Club. I do it because my digestive system says NO. And my nervous system says NO. And my cardiovascular system says NO. I hear the call. I heed the need. I take one for the team. I brew my tea.
Then Brad pours his coffee.
Brad!
May I have a sip, please?

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