Day one without coffee.
No shaking yet, no headaches. It’s going well. But it’s cold. So what to drink?
A few months ago, back in Cape Town, I met a girl from Xi’an. On cold winter days she used to drink cups of hot water. I couldn’t fathom the idea and insisted on taking her for a cup of coffee to save her from having to stomach the bland cup of hot water.
Not sure where my aversion to hot water came from, but I think it was the ingrained idea that drinking hot water leeds to stomach cramps. On reflection however, I realise it was something my mother told me as a small boy to prevent me from drinking my bath water.
Moving swiftly on… so wanting to cut the two most popular hot drinks in the world (coffee and tea) from my diet for two weeks (see yesterday), I am left with very, very few choices of what to drink.
I have however, since I got to China, been indulging in the practise of drinking plain old hot water. The theory is sound, especially now that it is getting cold. Water in general is good for you, right? Water has all sorts of benefits, the one most relevant to the temperature is that being well hydrated helps keep you warm.
As I was saying, keeping well hydrated is fine, a glass or so every hour should do the trick, but who wants to be sipping a glass of cold water on a chilly winter’s day? The obvious solution is to sip a cup of hot water. All the benefits of your cold water, plus it’s warm and yes, comforting to drink.
Of course, you could be sipping a cup of tea, or coffee, but apart from being hot water it has sugar and/or caffeine and/or all sorts of other not-so-beneficial stuff, and you can’t really sip 8 cups of coffee a day, can you? Unless… you can.
Thus, several months post my frowing upon the culture of another in that of drinking hot water on a cold day, I find myself doing exacxtly the same thing… and liking it.
There is much to be said for coffee, but as I’m abstaining, I won’t go into a lengthy discussion about my ‘vice’. As they say, out of sight, out of mind.
Was the kettle whistling?