I’m not a natural Creature of Change. Mostly, I like things to stay as they are. Oh, I can adapt when I need to (case in point, the last 14 months of Living on Planet Earth and, in my previous incarnation as Teacher, arriving to do a cover lesson and finding the absent teacher had left NO work which then required me to make something up on the hoof) but generally I am all for the status quo, and I don’t mean the band although I do admit they have some rockin’ tunes.
If there is to be change I like to know when, and for what reason. I do NOT like surprises. They leave me feeling wrong footed and out of sorts. Which is why, when embarking on this three week healthy living programme to support Andy in making changes to his lifestyle now that he is 50 (and everything is downhill from here on in) I regarded the caffeine-free tea and oat milk with a certain amount of suspicion, nay trepidation. To me oats have only one place in the world - covered in sugar and butter and turned into flapjack.
Firstly, oat milk. Who knew oats had udders, eh? Turns out they don’t but can you imagine the furore if they did? I mean, there are SO many oats in the world they would have to be managed in one of those indoor milking parlour stations. You couldn’t let them free range across the fields, herding them in twice a day to be milked, could you? Wholly impractical, I say. The oat activists would be up in arms, pointing out the cruelty of oats being kept indoors all day, lying around in their own dust, never feeling the warmth of the sun on their little oaty backs. Biting each other’s tails off to alleviate the sheer boredom...
...but, fortunately, oat milk does not come from oat udders. Stand down, oat activists! You can make your own oat milk instead of buying a carton like I did yesterday...
A nut milk bag? A NUT MILK bag??? Seriously? I bet they can be purchased for a tidy sum from some middle class emporium. I bet a square of cheap muslin will do just as well.
Anyway, oat milk at the ready, I prepared my decaffeinated tea. You have to be careful that the oat milk doesn’t curdle (feeling a bit sick now at the very mention of ‘curdle’) so the advice from oat milk aficionados is to PUT THE MILK INTO THE CUP FIRST before pouring in your tea. See! I was right all along vis á vis the correct order in which to make tea. All you people out there who add milk AFTER tea - pah! Curdle at your peril!
I’d already tested the decaffeinated tea with lovely cow’s milk and couldn’t really tell the difference. I don’t think I’m that caffeine reliant as my tea intake is generally around only 4 cups per day. I never drink coffee because it is disgusting and I rarely, if ever, drink fizzy/ energy drinks because they are nutritionally devoid and dissolve your bones. Also, at my age, you want to make your calories matter if you don’t want to be the size of a house and immobile as you enter your dotage. Evangelical lecture over.
So, oat milk in cup first. I sniffed it, as I believe is the correct procedure for detecting poison, and there was a teeny whiff of oat, but it wasn’t offensive. Not like goat milk which is definitely farmyardy. And then I poured in the tea - no curdling. Normal looking colour.
And then I took a tentative sip...
And here are the votes of the Damson Cottage, subsidiary of Much Malarkey Manor, jury (out of 10):
Smell : 8 points
Texture : 9 points
Taste : 8 points
Health Goody Two Shoes: 10 points
Yes, I could tell it wasn’t cow milk, but after the first three sips the difference in taste was barely noticeable. There was an air of cereal about it, but not so hideous that I’m not prepared to give it a fair trial over the next three weeks for the benefit of my digestive and nervous systems.
However, at 4 p.m every day, I am going to sit down to a mug of caffeinated tea with cow’s milk because, in the words of that sassy singer/songwriter Meghan Trainor sometimes, it REALLY is all about that taste.
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KJ