Tea Vs. Coffee

I had never stopped to think about this competition between tea and coffee because I grew up in an environment where coffee was that warm drink that will comfort you or will give you the energy to go through your day; while tea was that cheap drink that you’ll drink if you were sick. So I drink coffee on my strongest days, and I’ll have a cup of tea when feeling weak.

And the truth is that I don’t really care if one is healthier than the other one (that might be just a myth) it’s the effect that coffee has on me. When I hang out with friends, I love ordering coffee because I just feel that it suits better in a social environment. Not to mention that, in my opinion, it goes better with sweet snacks, like cakes and cookies, but also with salty food like sandwiches.

I’ve been trying to trackback my preference for coffee. One of the strongest memories that I have when I was a kid, is of my parents drinking coffee, especially my dad, he couldn’t drink anything else that it wasn’t coffee. It might have been for this reason that I drink coffee since I was a kid. Of course, my mom would allow me to drink it only with milk and sugar. Now I just drink it black, and the strongest, the better.

I have to confess that when I was still a teenager, I would drink instant coffee, such a shame! But as I said, I started from the worst way to drink your coffee, to a decent one. When I was older, my mom and I decided to buy a coffee maker, which at least upgraded a little the way we drank coffee. One day my mom came with an Italian stovetop coffee maker. I still don’t know why it might have been a present. But that changed my life forever! The coffee we got with that thing was so rich in aroma and flavor. Thanks to that coffee maker we tried different types of coffee too. You know, not only that one that you can find in supermarkets, but also, artisanal coffee from Mexico.

Eventually, I moved out and I had to start all over again. I first bought a cheap coffee maker until it broke and my neighbor gave me an Italian stovetop coffee maker. Just like the one that my mom brought that day, except that this one was broken. I was happy with it, not only because I like the coffee that you can brew with it, but also because it reminded me of the times when my mom and I would drink a cup of coffee together. And since I already had a broken coffee maker and I was gonna need a new one anyway, I thought it was gonna be better to invest in something better. I think it was also mainly because I got too much into coffee. I decided to buy a coffee machine for home and after an extensive search, I went with the Nuova Simonelli Musica.

The machine is not only beautiful but convenient and really easy to use. It is the best coffee machine with a built-in grinder on the market. I chose the pour-over one because I don’t mind filling out the water tank every time I want a coffee because I don’t have to make many cups a day anyway. Except when I invite friends over, of course now the get-togethers take place at my apartment because I can offer to my friends good quality coffee, almost like in a café, except that nobody has to pay me over $2 for some coffee and lots of sugar. Instead, my friends come to my place with some snacks and we all have a good time.

I’m enjoying this coffee machine a lot! I can have it for myself in the mornings, I can share it with my guests and it has turned me into that host who can offer something different guests. But even with this lovely coffee machine, I still keep that Italian stovetop coffee maker that my neighbor gave me just out of nostalgia.

Recently, while enjoying a hot cup of coffee, I read an article about some of the problems faced by coffee plantations. They’re running out of space to grow the coffee bean, which means they won’t be able to supply the world’s coffee needs. The demand for coffee worldwide is so great that we need to find a new way to grow this plant.

The solution suggested in the article was indoor gardening. A lot of plants are currently being grown indoors. Methods like hydroponics and aquaponics work great, but planting them in soil would work as well. The main thing you lack indoors is sun and rain. You can obviously make up for the rain by watering your plants more. As for the sun, that’s where plant grow lights come in.

A 1000 watt LED plant light. Photo by Sunshine 117 – http://www.buynicer.com/news/How+to+Use+LED+Grow+Lights%3F_nwid500015.html, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22682319

There are a lot of different types of grow lights but the ones that will see used most in the future are LED grow lights. They are much more expensive, but there also much more efficient, especially the powerful 1000 watt LED lights for growing. Due to their higher efficiency, they use far less electricity to produce the same par output. This means you get more light that is usable for your plans for photosynthesis for the same amount of wattage inputted than you would with traditional horticultural lighting.

Electricity bills are lower and also, indoor LED lights meant for growing plants create a lot less heat than other lights. This means you don’t have to cool your grow space as much and save are able to save even more money on electricity as well as expensive equipment.

There are two main types of LED grow lights. One of them uses multiple colored LEDs to create the perfect spectrum for growing plants. Most of these LEDs will be red and blue, with some ultraviolet and some infrared and some all white LEDs mixed in. This creates exactly the light plants need and is the most efficient way of lighting your indoor garden. Good examples of multi-colored LEDs are the Black Dog PhytoMAX line of lights, the California Lightworks SolarStorm 880 and the Kind LED K5 XL1000.

The other type of LED lighting uses full-spectrum white LEDs, like the NextLight Mega panel. These produce a light very similar to natural sunlight. This is a great spectrum for growing plants, because as we all know, the sun does a great job of this. However, unlike with the sun, here you have to pay to power the light. And you’re paying for a lot of light in the green and yellow spectrum. With the sun it doesn’t matter that you have a lot of this light, but when you’re paying for green and yellow wavelengths, your money is going to waste. Plants don’t use this color of light as much as red and blue, so you’re simply wasting money.

That said, full-spectrum white LED grow lights do have one advantage. Your plans look the same under this lighting as they do under the sun. With other types of indoor LED lights, the plants in the taking on a pinkish hue, which makes it difficult to see any damage or infestations. With white light, it is easier to care for your coffee or tea plant.

Now I know this is all fantasy and we will probably not see coffee growing under horticultural LED lighting any time soon. I do know that tea has been grown under them, but not in a profitable way. I do think as we are more and more pressed for space on our little planet, will have to move more of our food production indoors. This means that LED plant lights will become more and more popular and you will start to see them everywhere and people will know what they are. An article like this will no longer be necessary.

If you need grow lights, you can find them on Home Depot’s website.

At my new job, I work with a guy who drinks many cups of coffee every day. He’s one of those guys who keeps talking about how he wants to do stuff, but then never does it. For example, he’s a chain smoker and ever since I’ve known him, which is over a year now, he’s been talking about how he is quitting smoking. He has not quit smoking. He has not even managed to cut back for longer than a week at a time. He will never quit smoking. He is a pathetic man. What I’m getting at is: we don’t want to be pathetic like him.

Another example: he keeps talking about how he wants to lose weight. He’s one of those short, stocky, bald men who are extremely insecure. He doesn’t eat breakfast or lunch most days, in an attempt to lose weight. The problem is, as soon as he gets home from work he makes himself a gigantic pasta dish full of meat and then follows it up with all kinds of junk food.

He eats potato chips, he eats candy, he drinks the unhealthiest soft drinks you can imagine. And then, of course, he keeps wondering why he can’t lose weight, even though he doesn’t eat breakfast and lunch. At the same time, he watches me eat a ton of food several times a day. What he doesn’t seem to realize is: that’s all I eat. And most of my food is vegetables. If I have a snack, its fruits or nuts. They taste better than his junk food and they are better for me. And I’m skinny and he is fat.

Back to the coffee. This is another habit that makes him completely unhealthy. But he does not even realize this one. I keep telling it to him, but he doesn’t get it. It’s true, coffee can be healthy. He has even started supplementing his coffee habit with two or 3 cups of green tea every day, which he has seen me do. He even manages to not put any sugar in it, so this is actually a healthy addition to his lifestyle.

The Longjing green tea my coworker has begun drinking

The problem is all the coffee. At work, he buys the instant stuff with cream and sugar in it. It is preprocessed so you can imagine just how much sugar is actually in that stuff. It is far from healthy. It is definitely not the coffee scientists have recently begun claiming is healthy.

On top of this unhealthy pre-processed coffee he drinks at work, he goes to Starbucks at least once every day. While there, he orders one of those gigantic coffees full of all kinds of syrups and other unhealthy substances. He drinks more calories with that one drink then I have for a whole meal. And then he wonders why skipping meals doesn’t work. Naturally he also frequents fast food outlets and pizza joints. But at least he realizes those are less than healthy.

An unhealthy coffee with too much sugar

He simply doesn’t get that all the coffee he drinks is a large reason for his weight problem. He doesn’t get that putting sugar into coffee makes it unhealthy. And he is not alone. So many people don’t get this. So many people claim to be healthy, actually think they are healthy, but they consume so much sugar without even realizing it. Then they wonder why they can’t lose weight.

Drink coffee if you want to. It is not unhealthy. Just don’t put anything in it. If you’re putting all kinds of milk and sugar in your coffee, do you really like coffee? I don’t think so, so why drink it. If you like the taste of coffee, you shouldn’t have to put anything in it. At the very least just put milk in it. Leave out the sugar. If you’re drinking tea, this is doubly true. In this case, you don’t even want the milk. Put nothing in it. It tastes great naturally. And it’s good for you. You will be much healthier for it.

Coffee has always had a bit of an unhealthy reputation and when you ask most people which is healthier, coffee or tea, they will quickly say tea. This reputation is undeserved, as drinking coffee actually has quite a few health benefits (here’s an article on WebMD on coffee’s health benefits). The key, as with so many things, is to drink coffee in moderation. So let’s look at some of the benefits a cup or two of joe per day can bring.

A cup of hot java

One study has shown that java can help prevent skin cancer by absorbing harmful rays and promoting cell repair. Similarly, it has been shown to help prevent endometrial cancer, by lowering insulin and estrogen levels.

A UCLA study showed that women who drank 4 cups of coffee per day were 56% less likely to develop type II diabetes. The caffeine in coffee has been shown to reduce the incidence of Parkinson’s disease in men. A Dutch study showed that drinking 2 to 4 cups per day can lower the risk of heart disease by 20%. Finally, java contains a substance that inhibits the production of stomach acid, which can help combat indigestion.

Apart from these major disease fighting properties, there also a few lesser benefits of coffee. One is the reduction of cellulite. The research is mostly preliminary but apparently applying coffee topically increases micro-circulation which may help smooth cellulite.

Another study showed that drinking 3 cups of coffee can reduce the risk of depression in women by around 15%; that figure climbed to 20% with 4 cups of coffee. Java can also help reduce stress: a cup can make women more effective partners. Unfortunately, it has the opposite effect on men. Finally, drinking coffee during the middle portion of your life can help reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s or other dementias in old age.

As you can see, drinking Java has a number of health benefits and I’m guessing many of them might come as quite a surprise to most people. On top of these benefits, a recent study has also shown that combining coffee with tea actually increases the individual benefits of both. Basically, this is the principle of putting two things together and ending up with a result that is greater than the sum of its parts. I suppose you could say coffee and tea make the perfect marriage: individually they are each good for us; combined, they’re better for us than simply adding up the individual benefits would suggest.

So the next time somebody tries to tell you to cut back on your coffee, you can now educate them. Let them know just how wrong they are about coffee being unhealthy and let them know what it is that makes coffee healthy and what it does for us. Of course, I’m assuming you drink 1 to 4 cups of coffee per day. If you are one of those people that drinks it by the gallon, then it’s not quite so good for you. Furthermore, if you’re one of those people who puts a few drops of coffee into a large cup of cream and soaks the whole thing up in a tub of sugar, then your java habit is also not especially healthy.

For more on the health benefits of coffee see:

1. Huffington Post: 9 Amazing Benefits of Coffee
2. New York Times: This Is Your Brain on Coffee
3. Harvard Health: Coffee’s Health Benefits