Earl Grey (it's not really about tea, but also, mmmm tea)

me

26 May 2025 — 1 min read

I love tea, but I am very caffeine-sensitive, so decaf it must be.

Until recently I genuinely believed that I preferred English Breakfast tea to Earl Grey tea. If you'd pressed me on it, I'd have stuck to my guns.

Then I learned that decaf Earl Grey is readily available from the supermarket. It's with the other EG teas, not with the other decaf teas - who knew?! (Well, one of my friends did - thank you my dear).

Now, decaf EG is what I drink about 75% of the time. Most times I go to make a cup of tea, I ask myself which I want, and the answer is that I want EG.

I have come to see that my "genuine preference" for EB was in fact a way of me avoiding acknowledging - even privately, to myself - a desire I believed I could not satisfy.

Which makes me wonder, what other ways is my subconscious censoring my desires to make sure I do not want what I believe I cannot have? What if it doesn't realise I just need to look on a different shelf? ("Ohhh it's not stored next to the other tall dark intellectual but emotionally unavailable men with ADHD! Who knew!")

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A letter to my drug of choice

Clarity contractions

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