When I was a younger man, I used to drink a lot of coffee and tea. Then my appendix said, “enough of that,” and now I’m stuck with decaf. I’m not thrilled with that, but such is life.
I still drink decaf coffee and tea, but they’re not quite the same.
Recently, I had a very vivid dream about a tea experiment. In my dream, I decided that I liked tea better when more tea was steeped for a shorter period of time (as opposed to less tea steeped for a longer period of time). In my dream, the former option resulted in stronger tea with less astringency. And that’s how it turned out. (I tried it today.)
If you enjoy tea, I encourage you to experiment with different preparations. It can make quite a difference in the flavor, the amount of bitterness, etc.
I have actually gotten one or two good ideas from dreams, but I wouldn’t recommend going nuts with this sort of thing.
I usually put teabags in a pot for at least two cups of tea. I let it steep for about 4 minutes. Maybe I should try 3 teabags and let it steep for just a couple of minutes.
Caffeine doesn’t affect me so badly as a rule, but I can’t take as much of it as I could when I was younger.