Tea or Coffee?
Coffee. Some compare it to heaven on earth. Others swear that it’s a trick of the devil. Okay, well maybe not to that extent. But it’s true that as time goes on, coffee has become a staple part of everyone’s lives from those working 9 to 5 jobs at the New York Stock Exchange to lifestyle Youtubers like Peter McKinnon and Matt D’Avella.
But why coffee? Is it the sheer caffeine rush that people have become addicted to? Is it the sentimentality of “grabbing a coffee” with old friends? Or is it the artisanal ritual of pouring a nice black coffee in your kitchen at 8 in the morning?
Honestly, I think they’re all correct. Coffee is amazing. It’s secured a spot on everyone’s list as a “staple” food and has slowly creeped into everyone’s mornings as a necessity. I personally love coffee. I love the ritual, the smell and taste, the sentimentality, and the aesthetically pleasing photo. But to be blunt, it’s unhealthy, and that caffeine punches too hard. So, those health gurus on YouTube drinking drip coffee every morning… probably not the best idea.
By any means, I’m not saying that coffee is some type of poison. But just like anything else, too much of it can end up being bad for anyone. Personally, I wasn’t a coffee-drinker until college. It’s just easier to find coffee at a café or the dining halls, so I just gravitated to it when I needed a boost of energy. But I saw that it started to become a habit of mine to grab a cup of coffee every couple of days, and I realized how easily I started getting hooked onto it.
Warning: If you’re an avid coffee-drinker, I do not mean to offend you. Trust me, I love coffee, too, but these are my honest opinions based my experience
Green Tea, on the other hand, that shit’s pretty good for you to say the least. I’m not trying to come here and write as if I’m this know-it-all type of guy telling you what to do and what not to do. By all means, drink 3 cups of joe a day, that’s completely fine. I’m just saying what I really feel when drinking both.
When I drink coffee, I love it. It’s delicious, and I love the roasted taste of black coffee. These days, I have to say that I have been drinking coffee frequently in the mornings with some breakfast. I guess it’s slowly creeping its way into my routine. But honestly, after a cup of coffee, I usually get a slight headache in the back of my head from what I think is the rush of caffeine. After some Googling, I found this chart.
Now, I’m going to make a really outlandish analogy that I’m probably going to regret writing, and I’m honestly not at all experienced in these things whatsoever. But I think that coffee would be something like a one-night-stand; something riveting and a burst of energy all at once, but you’re probably going to regret it after a couple of hours. Green tea is something like a long-term relationship in which you reap and sow the benefits over time, and overall it’s just a gradual rise with minimal consequences.
When I’m drinking green tea, I admit that I don’t really feel a physical difference like I do with the caffeine from coffee. But it takes time, and I learned to be patient with it. I was so accustomed to these instant feelings that I forgot how to wait and be patient with things. Green tea is naturally not supposed to make you feel like having a caffeine rush, and it’s honestly a good thing. Like the chart showed, the green tea’s caffeine rise and fall is more like a subtle, curved shape as opposed to the hard spike and crash of coffee and energy drinks.
The “rush” that I get from tea is, to put it simply, nothing like I’ve experienced with anything else. You just need to drink a lot of it overtime, which is the only downside that I see. All of a sudden I feel really productive and work so much more efficiently. Kinda sounds like a drug from a movie, but that’s literally how it feels like. It really does feel like the first hour after a cup of coffee but for a longer period of time with no crash.
This is just what I feel, but I know that there is so much more health benefits from green tea. Antioxidants, prevention of cardiovascular diseases, improvements of brain function, increase in fat burning, and the list goes on and on. I won’t go on about this just because I don’t want to be feeding you guys wrong information, (and I’m just not qualified) so here are just some links that I found helpful:
I know a lot of people are going point out that there’s obviously caffeine in green tea, as well, and that there is no difference between coffee and green tea. I’m not saying the caffeine itself is different. I did some research and found that there’s a combination of caffeine and another nootropic called L-theanine within green tea. Apparently, this combination is supposed make someone feel only the benefits of caffeine without the drawbacks, which is what I felt personally, too. Kind of like a heightened level of all your senses and cognitive abilities if that makes sense. I don’t really know the science behind, but here’s a link to a blog that explains it pretty simply.
I take green tea over coffee. Coffee lovers, please don’t hate on me; I feel your pain. But honestly, I’ve felt both sides’ ups and downs. The truth is green tea just has more ups and less downs. Each drink has its perks, but I do think that green tea is overall just a better choice when it comes to health and productivity.