Originally uploaded by sahua

In times of stress and angst, my mother always prescribed a deep calming breath and a Nice Cup of Tea.

In times of big stress and angst, however, too many of those Nice Cups of Tea can send your over-caffeinated nerves a-jangling and tank your coping skills all the more.

So, how much caffeine is in a cup of regular black tea?

In part, it depends on how strongly your tea is brewed, how many tea bags or spoonfuls of tea laves in relation to how much water, and how long you let it steep before drinking.

(My grandmother used to let tea stew on the back of the stove for half the day, adding another splash of water or handful of tea leaves from time to time so the pot never ran dry. Her tea could bring a strong man to his knees.)

Health Canada’s recommendation is a maximum daily caffeine intake of no more than 300mg, or a little over two 8-oz (237 ml) cups of coffee, for women of childbearing age; and no more than 400mg for other healthy adults. As a general rule of thumb, you can figure that, for each cup of coffee, you could have 2 -3 cups of black tea, or 6-8 cups of green tea as the caffeine equivalent.

Not too bad… and tea in moderation has all kinds of health benefits that you’ve probably heard way too much about already.

But we’re talking about caffeine here, and whether our bodies can handle it when we’r ein crisis mode. We know that too much caffeine can keep you on edge and make you irritable, interrupt your sleep, and make your heart race the same way anxiety does. And now the medical types are telling us that caffeine will mess with your blood sugar levels, too.

Luckily, it’s not the caffeine that makes us turn to tea in a crisis, or when we’re pausing for recovery from a crisis. The comfort factor of the proverbial Nice Cup of Tea comes in large part from the heat of the liquid — iced tea just doesn’t have quite the same effect. Too, it’s the reassuring familiarity of the tea-brewing ritual, and even just cradling that warm mug in your hand.

So I’ve been expanding my supply of caffeine-free herbal teas.

I’ve mentioned Stash and their wonderful Lemon-Ginger tea before, I believe, as my first choice for soothing a sore throat and unstuffing a stuffy nose. But it does a good job of settling a nervous stomach, too. In fact any kind of ginger tea (or licorice, if you’re into that flavour) will calm an upset stomach that’s tied in nervous knots.

Chamomile tea is soothing beyond belief, but it tastes like boiled straw. Or, at least, as I imagine boiled straw would taste — that’s certainly not a beverage I’ve tried! It’s a lot more potable when blended with other herbs, like peppermint. And peppermint’s another herb that is traditionally used to treat insomnia, as well as a host of other complaints. Refreshing and calming, both at the same time!

Besides the symptoms of tension, headaches, upset stomach, nervousness and insomnia, we know that stress can also really take a toll on your immune system. Any little germ that’s going around, the stressed-out person will catch it! Hibiscus flower, rosehip or citrus-based herbal teas rich in vitamin C can help to fight back. Echinacea tea, too, of course — and Celestial Seasonings makes a pretty good Complete Care Wellness Tea that I can recommend trying: an echinacea blend with a lovely hint of mint.

For those small stressful events, by all means have a nice pick-me-up cup of regular black or green tea. They’re both said to be brimming with health-giving antioxidants, after all. But when life throws you a whole big series of major curves, do dial back on the caffeinated teas and give the caffeine-free herbal teas a try.

My pal Janine stopped by here on her way to work Monday morning, to borrow a piece of sticky tape and a ribbon — someone was retiring and she was in charge of getting the gift that everyone in the office had chipped in to buy. It was a little three-panel picture frame, really cute, but the real prize she wanted to show off was the gorgeous home-made wrapping paper!

She’d just sat down to wrap the gift late on Sunday evening when she realized there wasn’t a scrap of suitable wrapping paper in the whole house. And of course the stores were closed, so she couldn’t just go out and buy some gift wrap.

(Janine is never normally that disorganized, by the way — she said for me to be sure to tell you it was her daughter Carrie who used up all the paper on grad gifts!!)

Photo: dklimke

What to do?

When Tea Stains on Paper are a Good Thing…

The clever woman grabbed a tea bag — living in the country, we all have lots of tea bags in the pantry, it’s tradition! — and made a cup of tea.

She put it in the microwave, actually, and boiled it a little (since she wasn’t going to drink it) to hurry up the brewing process and make the tea good and strong.

Then she took a couple sheets of plain white office paper, the kind you would use for a printer or photocopier, and brushed the tea onto it with a small sponge. No need to try to get an even coat, she says — just splash down some random overlapping strokes of that lovely nostalgic sepia colour that tea staining will give… and let it dry.

Pioneer butterfly stamp: Amazon

Again, Janine hurried things up a little by gently pressing the paper between layers of paper towels, using just a barely warm iron to keep the paper from crinkling or scorching — though, come to think of it, a scorch-mark or two would just add to the old-fashioned look of it all.

When the paper was dry, or almost, she got out her scrapbooking supplies and went to work with a brown inkpad and a butterfly rubber stamp. Butterflies all over the paper, tone-on-tone in lovely subtle browns — nice!

We were thinking that, for a gift-giving occasion in the fall of the year, maybe for a Thanksgiving hostess gift or such, you could stamp on a pattern of leaves…

Anyway, Janine is one of those people who manage to think ahead and keep gift cards on hand, so that part wasn’t a problem. But she was out of ribbon, thanks to Carrie — and I only had some leftover from Christmas, printed ribbon with holly leaves on it. No raffia either, and not even a piece of good fat knitting wool (except a hideous orange, left over from making a clown wig… don’t ask!)

So she went through my junk drawer and found some ordinary brown package string, wrapped it three times around the little parcel, tucked a spring of dried flowers under the knot… and you know what? It looked just great!