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Why Tea Sucks

The biggest problem with tea today is that there’s too much of it. The choices are overwhelming. Which tea company should you go with? What tea should you drink? Which brewing method should you use?

Wherever we turn, we’re faced with options, and lots of them. Think about it. You go to your local deli and they offer you six kinds of bread, four kinds of mayo, two kinds of mustard, five kinds of turkey, and eleven garnishes. All I want is an amazing turkey sandwich and I have to make all these choices? What a pain!

Same goes for tea. All I want is a tea to wake me up, or to satisfy my sweet tooth, or to replace my coffee drinking habit. We don’t need or want hundreds of varieties of tea, but that is what many companies offer. Yet psychologists and economists have been finding that too much choice can cause anxiety and dissatisfaction.

By saying no to trivial decisions that waste precious mental energy, we show respect for ourselves. Our energy, our life, and our valuable time should be dedicated to the few things that really matter. Not on deciding which kind of turkey you want to have for lunch.

At Samovar we’ve made a conscious decision to limit our tea selection to the very best. Not the very best and then some. Over the years, we’ve tasted, blended, tested, and curated a careful selection of teas. It’s not super minimal, but it’s definitely not extensive.

If you want to delve into the world of tea, that’s great. The Learn section of our website and this cool video series I made with my friend Leo make it easy to learn about a variety of teas. But if that’s all too much, no problem. Tea should lower your stress levels, not add to them.

As you go about your day today, think of how you can reduce the number of choices you spend time on. Notice if you use your limited time and energy on things that matter. You might even want to track each activity, to see how much time you spend watching TV, shopping, reading Facebook posts, and spending time with loved ones.

We put effort cleaning out our houses, but what about cleaning our schedules? Every little distraction takes up a fraction of your mind-space. Each email, Facebook check-in, and micro-decision adds up. And then we complain that we have no time or energy.

It’s time for a spring cleaning. So brew a cup of tea, take a breath, and start saying “no” to distracting choices.

In gratitude,

Jesse Jacobs

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