Breaking Your Pop Habit-Tea is Your New Best Friend!-Part 2

            Hey folks! Thanks for coming back for part two of this post. In case you missed it, I gave some background on my own pop drinking habits and how/why I decided to finally start cutting back on it in the first post. Today I'm going to share my favorite teas as suggestions for "tea newbies" to try and some fun tea making gadgets that I have come across.

            Now, when I talk about tea, I'm not talking about brewed cold sweet or unsweet black tea. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm the only person on the face of this planet that DOESN'T like sweet tea. I know. Crazy. Let's talk about herbal tea! While yes, the majority of herbal teas do NOT contain caffeine, there are a few standbys that are pretty much guaranteed to contain caffeine. As I said, there are tons of yummy teas without caffeine, but for the sake of this post, I'm going to talk about the ones that DO contain at least some.
             Since I had never drank tea before this point, I just started experimenting and trying any kind that sounded good and weren't caffeine free to see what I liked. A year and a half later, I can't really say that I've had a bad tea yet. No matter the flavor, you'll want to look for something that contains green or black tea if you want caffeine.
            I have a couple of my favorite teas pictured above at the beginning of this post, which are the Jasmine Oolong from Teavana (on the left in the orange bag) and the Green Tea Lemongrass from Traditional Medicinals on the right. The jasmine oolong has been growing on me. For obvious reasons, it has a floral taste, which is a bit weird to me, but it's not unpleasant. However, it's great if you need a boost in energy. (Especially if you use too many pearls by accident like I did the first time without knowing any better! lol It's amazing I ever went to sleep that night. Seriously. lol)
            The Green Tea Lemongrass is probably my absolute favorite one that I've tried so far. I've been on a big lemongrass kick as far as scents go over the past year, and now it has transferred over into tastes too! This tea just tastes fantastic, it's very refreshing, and, not to sound like some tea connoisseur, but would probably be best enjoyed in the afternoon for a relaxing pick-me-up.
            Another one of my favorites that is not pictured is the Green Tea Pomegranate from Yogi. This one, again, as you can imagine, has a nice fruity flavor. I like this one because it's the most flavorful of the teas that I've tried. Plus, pomegranate is a super fruit!

I just tried this one for the first time the other day and it's pretty good too!

            While really all you need is a coffee or tea cup and some water to make tea, there are some other items I've come across that can come in handy, like the electric kettle in the first picture above. If you're in a hurry or just lazy like me, you can just warm a cup of water up in the microwave. If you're planning on making multiple cups a day or happen to like filtering your water first, an electric kettle might be a good investment.

            If you plan on using loose leaf tea, I highly recommend buying a strainer of some sort. I love the mini one I have in the first picture, but you can also get them in "ball" form or they even sell one time use and reusable tea bags for cheap. You don't absolutely need one of these, but it's a lot easier than trying to fish everything back out! 

My mom got me this nifty to go cup specifically for making loose leaf tea for my birthday. You can either use the strainer to make the tea ahead of time or it serves to keep your leaves in and you can just keep re-adding water! Nifty, huh?

            As some last words of wisdom, if you do decide to cut back or eliminate pop altogether, don't be too hard on yourself. Make goals to cut back a little at a time, kind of like when some people quit smoking. Sometimes life happens and you have a rough day and cave. It happens. Don't be afraid to splurge every now and then too once you've reached your goal. I'm still a sucker for an occasional Vanilla Coke or Mello Yello. :)

            What's your favorite tea? Do you prefer loose leaf or the pre-packaged kind? Are you planning on cutting back on pop this year?

Disclaimer: I was not paid for this post nor am I affiliated in any way with any of the companies mentioned or products that were linked to in this post. These are not affiliate links. I receive no money from the companies by sharing them. All opinions are my own and may differ from your own.