Tea for me, please. (Turns out, I was onto something…)
When I was growing up, café culture in London didn’t really exist. There were no ‘coffee shops’ as such (the first Starbucks opened in London when I was already at university) and meeting pals in cafes for a tea and catch up just wasn’t really a thing. Much to my great annoyance, as really, that’s all I ever really wanted to do.
As a young teenager, my social choices were either a) go to each other’s houses and drink Sprite, or… actually, that was pretty much it. Aged 13 I wasn’t going to meet my friends for dinner because none of us had any money and the lack of anywhere to meet and have a drink and a chat meant we didn’t do that either.
I remember watching Neighbours and Home and Away and being so jealous of ‘The Diner’ where all the kids would go and hang out and slurp milkshakes together. There was no diner in NW London and all I wanted to do was call up my friends on the landline after school and say, fancy a cuppa? (Because I was already 35 when I was 10).
It turns out, I knew what I was talking about. I’m pretty sure that if everyone at my school had met each other for tea after school, rather than a Fanta and a Twix, the borough’s league tables would have sky rocketed. Tea has always suited my disposition and personality but when I was young, I had no idea that it was better for me mentally and physically as well – or perhaps I did know on a subconscious level. (Maybe I am genius?)
When I was up late cramming for my GCSEs, it was a cup of tea by my side, rather than a fizzy energy drink. And although it was what I fancied naturally; I was actually choosing the healthier study aid. Tea is the only beverage that naturally contains L-theanine and caffeine which, when they work together, lead to improved alertness, and focus while still maintaining a feeling of calm. Crackajack.
I never drank fizzy drinks and didn’t like sugary cordials… and at school, I never crashed. I never had the peaks and lows that sugar so often results in, and although I didn’t sail through my teenage years (I absolutely did not sail through my teenage years) I certainly felt steady and on an even keel.
“Energy drink consumption is popular amongst teenagers – particularly around exam time. Yet negative effects have been linked to excess use of energy drinks, both due to the high caffeine content and the extra sugars. A review found that a standard can of energy drinks provides around 77 milligrams of caffeine, and excess intakes of caffeine in the long- term have been associated with daytime sleepiness, anger and behavioural problems.” – Tea Advisory Panel
Children, especially in Northern parts of the UK, used to drink cups of milky tea. However, once the cheaper cordials and sugary fizzy drinks arrived on the scene, this tradition became less and less popular and very likely contributed to to the detriment of children’s oral health and risk of obesity in general. This may sound dramatic, but actually the average primary school aged child is still getting almost one sugar cube a day from soft drinks while teenagers are getting three times this amount, which is huge. In fact, the teenagers who drink the most soft drinks regularly, are drinking the equivalent of more than two cans a day which racks up a crazy 77 grams of sugar daily.
We now live in a time where we know that too much refined sugar is extremely bad for us and I am far more mindful about Izzy’s sugar intake than I ever was with mine. But the fact that I was already a tea lover by the time I was 11 (thank you grandma) I know has made a huge difference to not just my teeth and health, but also to my mental wellbeing as a teenager and adult.
So a shout out to all the teenagers, who are lucky enough to have café culture as part of normal ‘cool’ life… Get thee to a café, order a tea and smash that homework.
Then order another cup and natter with your besties and laugh like hyenas until it’s time to go home.
This post is sponsored by the Tea Advisory Panel
