July: The Month of Green Tea

Well, I have long considered the impacts of giving up coffee cold turkey.  I am an avid coffee drinker and usually consume around 3 cups of my beloved black brew every morning, so this task would certainly be daunting at best, miserable at worst.  On a few occassions, I did quit coffee for a day or two and experienced unbelievable headaches from caffeine withdrawl, so I would like to see what would happen if I just replaced coffee with an alternate form of caffeine.

I considered changing to pop and having a couple cans of Coke every morning, but I don't like the amount of sugar and the artificial sweeteners in diet cola give me a headache.  I also thought about 5-hour Energy or Rockstar Energy drinks, but people go to the hospital after drinking those and it seems a little too intense for me.

So I have declared July to be the month of green tea.  This experiment will involve me completely dropping my daily coffee intake and replacing it with green tea to see how this affects me.  I like green tea and it has numerous health benefits, so I will keep you updated as the month progresses.

See also:
Change the Culture!
April, the Month of the Cold Shower

April, the Month of the Cold Shower: Day 1

April 1, 2013

Day 1 of my 30-day cold water shower challenge.  I was manager on duty for the evening shift at work, so I was able to take my time in the morning, drop my daughter off at pre-school, have a cup of coffee with my wife, and then begin my challenge, so it was about 9:30am when I started to get ready.  The sunshine was coming in through the bedroom (our bathroom is an inner room without any windows), so I left the lights off in the bathroom and walked into the shower.

I stared up at the showerhead, remembering the showers at summer camp, and thought to myself, "I could do this back in the day, I can do it now, here we go!"  I turned the water on and presented my heart to the cascade of frigid water and yelped with the first burst.  It was a shock!  I didn't remember the showers at camp being that cold!  All of this corporate work must have made me soft.

My entire shower must have lasted only a minute or so, as I showered as fast as I could to get out.  This led me to my first conclusion about cold showers:

Conclusion #1: Cold showers save time.

I was able to get completely clean (shampoo, conditioner, soap, and face wash) in less time than it takes to brush your teeth.  I read somewhere that the average shower takes 10-15 minutes, so I now added an extra 9-14 minutes to my day.  That's about 1-1.5 hours extra per week, or 54-85 hours of extra time every year!

Green Coffee?!

I just set up shop in a Starbucks to get a little work done and I was offered a sample of Starbucks Refreshers, a new product that they have rolled out today!  Refreshers are made from green coffee extract.  Green coffee?  What in the world is this?!

Apparently, black coffee takes on its flavor from the roasting process.  As the raw, green beans are toasted to varying degrees of darkness, the signature flavor and aroma develops.  Starbucks has taken an extract from the green coffee bean and uses this as the basis for this new drink.  It still has caffeine from the unroasted bean but none of the flavor of coffee.  I tried both of the flavors, Very Berry Hibiscus and Cool Lime (I liked the latter better).  It tastes just like a fruit drink and I couldn't detect any bitterness from the caffeine.  Refreshers come in cans, Via packets, and, iced drinks made right in the cafe.  I was given a coupon for half-off a pack of Vias.  This Friday only, they are offering a free Refresher.  Check it out!

http://www.starbucks.com/refreshers/en-us

Change the Culture!

There's one little thing that's been nagging at me about us here in the good ol' US of A.  It bugs me so much that I actually have to write about it here.  Now sure, we all have our pet peeves and it's not that big of a deal, but it really irks me!  Here it is: when there is a coffee station, why do people pour a cup of coffee, stand there, add creamer, sugar, give it a stir, sip it, add some more cream/sugar, sip it again, fumble with the lid, put on the heat sleeve, and then finally move out of the way for the next person?!  How much time are we spending in line waiting for the other person to doctor up their coffee and be on their way?  (Probably about as much time as it takes to write this post!)

Most coffee drinkers know how they like their joe fixed, so why not pour your coffee, grab your cream, sugar, lid, heat sleeve, and plastic stirring stick and step out of the way for the next person?  Wouldn't that be the polite/courteous thing to do?

Let's change the culture!