When you're concentrating on writing code it often helps to have a cup of tea or coffee, or a can of coke maybe. It seems to make things flow better, it ups your concentration. But does it? How would your coding be if your cleared your head of the fuzz of caffeine? There's only one way to find out – fresh herb tea.
I spent years drinking regular tea and coffee. I was a coffee, milk, half a sugar type of person for most of my life. Then I started cutting the milk from tea and coffee before one day I happened to be in the London Review of Books Café in London (this was Swift related) and made a decision to order a white tea (not a tea with milk) but an exquisite young tea low in caffeine with loads of real woody bits and rose petals to boot. From there I couldn't go back to regular tea. (I also gave up coffee with the exception of a very occasional iced one over summer.) But it took me another year or two before I thought, hang on what about all the things on my kitchen sill and in my garden that could make a zero-caffeine drink. A slice of lemon, some basil leaves, root ginger, hops (they grow along the lane next to my house), lavender, thyme, rosemary, mint, cinnamon sticks. The list just kept growing.
I blend ad hoc, finding flavours and combinations that I like, checking the Internet to confirm I'm not going to poison myself. The light fragrant teas are delightful with an endless range of variety, a variety that is akin to cooking one's own meals, which I'm guessing many of you might do already. So where's the difference and why aren't we all blending our own fresh tea in the way we cook meals? Try picking five small leaves from a basil plant and add them to boiled water that has been allowed to cool for a moment or two. And while you wait for the water to cool, cup your hands around the leaves and breath in the basil smell. Or slice three pieces of root ginger and add a slice of lemon to the water instead. Up the ingredients if you like something more powerful. To make things practical on a daily basis freeze some slices of lemon and ginger or put herbs into sealed plastic bags so that you can use them away from home. Go on, just try it once at least and see what you think. It could help you to see off caffeine cravings for good.
For those who like recipes there are plenty on the Internet:
In my experience stepping down the caffeine by replacing coffee and black tea with green and white teas before moving off traditional tea altogether has worked for me, although it has taken a year or two for this to happen. Others have opted for a cold-turkey approach but the aim appears in this particular instance to be a shift away from coffee rather than entirely cutting caffeine. Of course if you enjoy tea, coffee, cocoa or even coca-cola then that's fine but it feels better to me if I pick and choose when I have these drinks rather than feel I can do nothing without them.
Moving from one or two coffees a day backed up with three or four teas to a situation where I cannot remember my last coffee and whether I've even drunk one this year feels much better. Similarly I've not drunk even white tea except as a social act in recent weeks. Cocoa used to be a regular nightly drink too, but that is down to a once a week event that I could easily skip too; it is drunk as a social act. This move to drinking caffeinated drinks as an infrequent social act is a liberation but it has lowered my tolerance. The thought of black tea (unless v. weak) or a regular coffee (not iced and not filled with milk) fills me with near dread. But this is a small price to pay for the regained clarity and concentration, the lack of rush that used to accompany working.
Disclaimer: no caffeine was consumed in the writing of this blogpost.
Comments
Post a Comment