Me and Tea.

Friends, I have given up putting milk in my tea.

Why? Because as I wrote a few days ago, putting milk in my tea gives rise to annual methane emissions equivalent to almost a third of tonne of carbon dioxide.

On balance, I would rather avoid those emissions than experience the pleasure of putting milk in my tea.

My life in tea

I can still hazily remember being served milky tea with sugar as a child – perhaps I was 6 or 7.

Later on, drinking tea became a habit, and when I was probably 11 or 12, I gave up putting sugar in my tea.

And I have been drinking large amounts of tea each day – maybe 6 cups – ever since.

Around 12 years ago, I was concerned about my son’s seemingly unbreakable attachment to his iPod. To my surprise, he agreed to surrender his iPod if I gave up tea. I agreed, pleased we had reached an amicable bargain.

However I gave him back his iPod after 3 days, because in truth I was – and am – addicted to tea!

So changing the way I drink my tea is changing a life-long habit.

Life-long habits

Carbon dioxide and methane emissions are not very obvious – we generally don’t see them: the gases are invisible and have no smell. And they frequently take place at distant locations such as power stations or farms.

But the emissions are nonetheless real and their long term damage is on a scale that it is scarcely possible to imagine.

Additionally these emissions are entwined with our familiar ways of living.

• Gas boilers keep us warm.
• Cars provide mobility.
• Aeroplanes take us on holiday.
• Milk and Cheese and Butter taste great.
• Tea with milk is ‘how normal people have tea’.

So acknowledging the reality of the emissions we give rise to and the harm they cause is hard both intellectually and emotionally.

Writing the article last week it became clear to me that I had to overcome my emotional attachment to milk in my tea.

Breaking these life-long habits is something we will all have to do if we want to create a way of living which does not damage the climate of our children’s future more than we already have.

More than milk

After 10 days I am happy to report that I am enjoying my milk-free tea and have now almost stopped reflexive visits to the fridge each time I make a cup!

I think I taste the tea itself rather more, but it is a very different kind of drink.

I have also been reducing use of butter and cheese and I have found alternatives that are perfectly acceptable in most recipes.

I find it hard to believe my use of dairy products will ever reach zero. But I can easily imagine reducing consumption by 90% or so.

Life is a long journey, and I never thought my journey would take me here: milk-free tea and minimising use of cheese and butter which I love!

It feels strange and unfamiliar.

But here I am.