Tea Withdrawal: The Dark Side Of Drinking Tea

CKS Memorial Hall (國立中正紀念堂), during the last day of the Lantern Festival. Part of the Lantern Festival Series.

Yesterday evening, I got a strange headache.

It’s the dull sort of kind, that travels up and down your neck and settles in the middle of your head.

I have had these headaches before.

Normally, they have to do with something that I ate.

But this time, I didn’t eat anything special. Just the normal food I usually eat everyday.

When I woke up the next morning, after 10 hours of sleep, I could still feel a dull throb in my skull.

I got my tea ready and sat down in front of the computer.

Then it hit me; I hadn’t drunk any tea the day before. I was too busy and left the house pretty quickly and only came back in the evening.

That is when the aches started.

As I sipped a few sips of my hot and very strong orange pekoe tea, served in the traditional Indian way with lots of milk and lots of sugar, it dawned on me that I was suffering from tea withdrawal.

Just like coffee contains caffeine, tea also contains a certain amount of caffeine and uniquely theanine. I find that tea is a lot easier on my stomach than coffee. I have been drinking tea since a child, since France, if I remember, and that was 24 years ago.

After the first cup, my headache had disappeared. Sometimes when I sleep too much, I get a headache, especially if its over 12hrs. Sometimes this happens over the weekend, when I take the time to catch up on my sleep.

It had been a while since I had a day without tea. It took a few months before I found the right sort of tea to buy in Taiwan, but ever since then, I have been drinking tea daily, and more than one mug!

Note to self: make sure to drink at least one cup of tea every day.