Is Patriotism Keeping You Sick?

I can truthfully say that for the last 10 years or more, I have drank a cup of tea every single day. Occasionally I'll have something fruit-flavored to mimic juice or chamomile if I need sleep, but I usually drink green tea. After adding a perfect blend of lemon juice and honey, sipping my tea becomes the best part of my day. This habit was encouraged by a guy I used to date. He was African and swore by it's healing properties.

I'd become more health conscience in recent years so I didn't mind testing to see if drinking tea actually contributed to better health.

In the past, I suffered from horrible allergies. As a kid, I had a sneeze you could hear from down the block. When the seasons changed, I was guaranteed a stuffy nose and a head that felt like it could float off at any second. I experienced these issues well into adulthood. One day, in my adulthood, I got sick and the fellow I mentioned above was nice enough to bring me some tea and brown sugar. I don't remember exactly what kind of tea it was, but I do remember feeling better after I drank it.

I didn't immediately start the daily habit of drinking tea, but I became more consistent when I start noticing how I felt when I didn't drink it. I didn't feel as healthy. In the beginning, a really great and funny moment happened for me when I was hanging with a friend and I was about to sneeze, but it didn't happen! It's as if ingredients in the tea had engaged in that very moment to cease the sneeze. I bragged to my friend that the green tea was doing it's job.

So, yes, I can unashamedly proclaim that I am a green tea addict! It strengthens my immune system, my allergies are regulated and when the seasons change I don't get sick. I began thinking about starting my own dry tea company so I can share and spread the gospel of this wonderful drink! So, my tea research began.

I learned that even though tea is the second most consumed drink in the world behind water, Americans make up a very small percentage of that number. We drink black iced tea by the tons (over 80%) but not dry leaf/hot tea, and if we do, it's not on a daily basis. It's not primarily used to prevent illness, we drink it to feel better when we're already sick and we stop after we've healed. It was a bit shocking to learn that we drink significantly less tea than the rest of the world, considering I, an American, require it to start my day, similar to how a lot of Americans feel about their coffee.

It is a researchable fact that tea is an overall healthier drink because of it's antioxidants, yet most people are hooked on the brown in the U.S. Another tidbit I discovered is that way back when we were baby America, tea was deemed a "traitor's drink. During the late 1700's, British settlers attempted to establish a monopoly in the tea trade by becoming the only importers of the product and imposing outrageous taxes. The colonists weren't having it. As an act of protest, colonists tossed dozens of crates of tea overboard from a British ship in Boston, an event famously known as the "Boston Tea Party".

Because tea is so closely associated with British tyranny, American's have essentially been boycotting it since the American Revolution and coffee became the liquid drug of choice. The politician Samuel Adams called it the "traitor's drink" in a letter to his wife. Despite tea benefits being widely known and touted, American's patriotism is so embedded in our palates that we steer away from the better choice as a gesture of allegiance. So what if coffee is overly priced and gets you all jacked up, buy it anyway, because it's the American thing to do.