Things I'm Passionate About Part 13

Part 13 of things I’m passionate about.

1. Gum

I love gum. Straight up, it’s good for helping with an oral fixation, like the kind you can get from smoking or habitual eating. Whether that be boredom eating, emotional eating, or whatever. It can also change your mood depending on the taste or smells it evokes. I know some people think that that’s related to things like aroma therapy which a lot of people think is hokum, but certain flavors of gum, like with teas can help change my mood, and even if it’s psychosomatic, isn’t that kind of the point? I love the taste, I love using it as a way to help stave off my overeating habits, there’s some studies that point out that chewing primes your digestive enzymes and so having no food go in after chewing could mess with your hormones, but I’ll have to do more research on that. I’m going to be writing about the science of gum chewing and the origins and manufacture of gum itself, but also reviews on all the different types of gum I try and enjoy.

2. Tequila

As I said in my last post, “my” drinks are rum and tequila. I love them so much. Rum for its broad array of flavours, Tequila for it’s salty and savory deliciousness. Just writing about it makes me crave it, but not in an alcoholism way. Much like with Rum, I’m going to be writing about famous types of tequila, its origins and manufacturing processes, famous imbibers of the elixir (both fictional and real), reviews of the different types I try and enjoy. I’ll also be noting the mix drinks recipes you can use with tequila to make cocktails and ways you can cook with it along with any food recipes you can pair it with. Yes, that’s also a thing.

3. Tea

Tea is something I have a deep love for, but one that I didn’t find I had until well into adulthood. As a child my parents and grandma would drink coffee in the mornings and afternoons, and tea and night with their dinners and while watching TV. While that has changed a lot in recent years and they don’t drink as much tea as they used to, our cupboards are still full of Tetley and Red Rose teas. In the last decade or so, tea seemed to have something of a renaissance where I live as David’s Tea stores and various tea shops and tea houses have been popping up and gaining popularity. I think most people drink it as much for the status symbol of being a tea drinker as they do for any purported health benefits, but that’s fine. I started drinking it regularly because of a girl I was seeing, ha! Though that relationship is over, I am thankful for the appreciation she gave me for teas and the experimenting with them I began to do.

With this series on teas I’ll be documenting their histories in different cultures, what constitutes a tea versus say just a broth or soup, reviews of different tea brands and flavors, reviews of different tea houses, shops, and restaurants, tea recipes that I have found and ones I’ve made myself. Even how tea might help with different physical or mental ailments and issues (I know I personally love using it to warm up and calm down if I’m upset, manic, or insomniac).

Part 13 is over, tomorrow will be part 14, unless I have something else planned to go out tomorrow, we shall see…