If I didn’t keep a bowl of fresh fruit and fancy teas in the house I’d be having some very uncomfortable conversations about diabetes with my doctor right about now.
What kinds of teas do you like? I dropped my soda habit a long time ago, but I seem to have replaced it with a habit for those dragonfruit juice drinks from Starbucks. I’m trying to get away from that and just make tea at home.
Honestly, if you want soda or wine or beer or such, don't buy "good tea", buy crazy blended teas with maple syrup or fruit in them. Something that's closer to what you're replacing. I feel like part of the difficulty is people trying to replace something that's a lazy comfort consumption with something that feels like a punishment. You don't quit eating McDonalds by going "but I could eat kale instead".
You want something that's 3/4 of the way there. I've started making my own sugar syrups with cinnamon in them for my decaf coffee because it gives me a lot of the same "sweet + spicy" flavor I like without as much sugar. Stuff like that helps a lot, but it'll depend on what you like for it. Maybe you really want cold drinks, and hot drinks substitute poorly? Have you considered better/nicer seltzer waters for that?
My definition of fancy teas has become more traditional over time, but you’re right. I started with things like Republic of Tea’s fruity ones. The blueberry hibiscus is still something I drink at night. Or Good Hope Vanilla.
Peach and black tea is quite interesting, because it smells entirely of peaches, but scarcely tastes of them. It’s very much like coffee in that way. Amazing aroma, boring delivery.
try natural fruit juice (or sugar syrup) mixed with carbonated water or even plain water. dilute it to reduce the amount of sugar as much as possible (fruit juice naturally also contains sugar).
while i was never a big soda drinker, one summer i was drinking a lot of it because it was hot and the soda was refreshing, until i realized that the refreshment came from the carbonation, and i could have plain carbonated water to the same effect.
i still liked a sugar soda once in a while, but i avoided developing a habit.
later while i was in austria, i discovered that they had fruit-sodas with half the sugar content compared to regular soda (only 4% instead of the usual 8%)
after getting used to that the regular sodas suddenly tasted way to sweet and now i can't even look at that stuff anymore.
