I Gave Up Coffee for Matcha for 10 Days, Here's How it Went....

I'm Amanda, the COO here at Tease and I have a bit of a secret.

I LOVE coffee. Espresso, lattes, iced coffee, good old fashioned diner coffee, if it's coffee, I want it. 

Is it strange that an executive at a tea company loves coffee this much? Maybe. To be fair, I also love tea. And to be frank, tea does a lot more for me than my morning (afternoon... sometimes evening) cup of coffee, and I've found myself entirely too dependent on that harsh zing of caffeine that coffee provides me with.

I've also been experiencing headaches, trouble sleeping, dehydration, jittery hands and increased anxiety as my dependance of coffee has increased.

This is why I'm offering myself up in an experiment where I will be getting rid of my daily coffees in place for our ceremonial grade matcha for ten full days. Every day I'll share my honest experience as I navigate through my coffee break up and (hopefully) into something that aligns better with my body.

Here's some quick facts about why matcha is so great:

🌱 matcha has 60x more antioxidants than spinach
matcha 

🌱 matcha is a natural detoxifier for your liver 

🌱 matcha is less acidic than coffee (easier on your stomach)

🌱 matcha provides a stable boost without the crash of coffee 

🌱 matcha can increase metabolism

🌱 antioxidants in matcha can improve skin, hair and nail health

Day 1: Excited to start a 10 day #teasematcha challenge. Excited, and a little bit nervous. I love matcha, but am a huge coffee drinker (2-3 cups a day). I’ve noticed over the past few months that coffee was wreaking havoc on my nervous system and giving me afternoon headaches and shaky hands. I know this challenge will be hard, but I feel ready for it! I’ve included a guide to how I like to enjoy matcha (a great place to start for anyone who is new to it!).

1 tsp Matcha

1 tsp Stevia or sweetener of choice
1 cup barista blend oat milk (I find this froths really beautifully, but use whatever you have!)

Add to an electric milk frother (I have one similar to this), and swirl it up into a delicious frothy matcha!

Day 2: Oh boy, feeling some coffee withdrawals. Really enjoying how beautiful the colour of this matcha is. A lot deeper than other ones I tried prior to joining the Tease team. I’m doubling up on my matcha intake today (I feel like I need an extra boost!), and enjoying one over ice. So refreshing and beautiful to look at.

Day 3: I love matcha, but I miss coffee. I have noticed less jittery hands in the afternoon since making the switch, which was one of my reasons for starting this challenge. I’ve heard that the first three days of a lifestyle change can be the hardest so hopefully the coffee cravings get easier after this.

Day 4: Sprung out of bed this morning feeling well rested and so excited for my new matcha ritual. I'm starting to appreciate more than just the health benefits and instagrammable look of the matcha, I’m really finding a lot of value in taking a moment to myself to make my matcha each morning. This morning I felt like getting a little matcha crazy and added a teaspoon to my breakfast of irish oats too. Matcha is definitely winning over the coffee cravings today!

Day 5: Loving the versatility of matcha. Today was another iced matcha day and my frother made it extra fluffy. I have been noticing that my afternoon headaches seem to be minimized and the sleep app on my phone tells me that I’ve been moving around less at night, which could be correlated.

Day 6: Matcha mornings! Okay, by this time, I’m a true convert. I’m loving every minute of my matcha prep ritual and every single sip. Today I decreased the amount of sweetener I usually put in and loved it. It’s so fresh and grassy, it feels like drinking Spring.

Day 7: Woke up feeling unrested (likely connected to those glasses of wine I enjoyed with my pasta last night) and in a bit of a funk. I keep my matcha out on an open shelf in my kitchen, and perked up a bit when I saw it sitting there waiting for me. Loving our new matcha label design so much, it adds such a nice pop of colour to my exposed shelves. Anyway, today I doubled up on matcha (does matcha counter the effects of ‘too much wine’? Probably), and was focused all day despite my less than stellar sleep last night. 

Day 8: Ran some errands in my neighbourhood today and wanted a little pick me up, so I stopped at my favourite local coffee shop for an iced matcha with oat milk. This was my first time having a matcha that wasn’t Tease since I joined the Tease team last year, and let me tell ya…. matcha quality is a broad range.

Although I enjoyed my cafe matcha, I much prefer the ceremonial grade matcha. You can typically tell by the colour (ceremonial is a deep grass like green, “culinary” matcha is very light and can have a slight yellow tint to it), and by the taste (ceremonial is smooth and slightly sweet, “culinary” can be bitter a chalky). Needless to say, I’ll be sticking to my at home matcha ritual from now on.

Day 9: I can’t believe I’m nearly done the 10 day challenge. By now, all of my coffee cravings have completely passed and it’s hard to imagine not waking up with my matcha first thing every morning. Today I wanted to get “wild” with my matcha and attempted the trendy tik tok thick frothy version called dalgona matcha, but I didn’t have much luck (it frothed, but no more than normal), alas, my regular ritual of matcha, stevia and barista blend oat milk remains, which is just fine by me.

Day 10: My final day! Remembering the first day of this challenge thinking that 10 days was going to be rough, but honestly I’m in no rush to get back to coffee. During these past ten days, matcha has helped me:

1) Alleviate headaches
2) Avoid shaky hands
3) Had better night sleeps
4) Get rid of coffee cravings
5) See a noticeable difference in my skin quality (something I’m now calling a ‘matcha glow’)
6) Slow down to take quality time with myself (and my matcha) every morning