The tea that changed my life. Ok, so that's a little dramatic but this tea is good!

I recently discovered the most amazing thing. Wait for it.....TEA! Yes, that's right, tea. Not the fountain of youth, the cure to any disease or anything of real importance but still a mighty fine discovery in my world.

I have never liked coffee and I didn't want to drink pop (soda, soda pop, Coke, fountain beverage-whatever you want to call it!) early in the morning and I didn't want to drink it on a regular basis. So what was I left with? Tea. I didn't like any of my previous encounters with tea. I was ready to just give up (especially when I found out that all the stores I frequent stopped carrying the Diet Coke with Splenda-the only kind of pop I'd let myself drink on occasion) when I was organizing one day and I found a magazine recipe that had an article on the back of it. The article talked about a study that discovered if you drank something you didn't like for 7 days straight, your chances of liking it improved by 70-something percent! I liked those odds and decided to give it a go!

Now my husband is an tea enthusiast, so we had plenty of choices but I went out and bought another kind-just to have options. Well my options stunk. I wasn't sure how I was going to make it the full 7 days. It just tasted flat and slightly woody and bland. I was in trouble. But thank goodness for my husband. We were out shopping and he wanted to stop at the mecca of all things tea, Teavana.

I was still skeptical when we walked in but after I started tasting their samples, I was a changed woman. The saleswoman probably thought I was certifiable because I pretty much went crananas over how good it all tasted. I couldn't believe this was tea! Full of flavor and thicker than the watery stuff I drank on the way there.

We've since bought three different Teavana tea blends and have loved them all. Everything is loose leaf and that's the way you want it trust me. It makes all the difference. Check out what Teavana has to say about that here.

I was so happy to find the answer to my caffeine prayers here. They have maté teas, which have as much caffeine as a cup of coffee! Take that coffee! And of course all of their teas, and tea in general, have health benefits too. Think antioxidants out the wazoo!

The tea that I got to help with my caffeine needs was their mix of White Ayurvedic Chai and Samurai Chai Maté. YUM. We also purchased Youthberry and Wild Orange Blossom tea and Strawberry Lemonade and Apple Lemon Pomegranate tea. Both delish but sans caffeine.

Check Teavana out on Facebook or take a look at their very informative website. You can buy tea from their stores or online! They also have a tea of the month club, a blog all about tea (check it out here), and even an iPhone app that can give you advice on blending teas! There's no excuse for you not to like tea anymore!