Tea Questions

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moksha
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Tea Questions

Post by moksha » Sun Jun 12, 2022 4:05 pm

Are there any good-tasting herbal teas? I understand Butterfly Pea (blue) tea is pretty good.

In terms of selling the Mormon religion to people in Asia, how easy is it to get them to buy into the no tea thing?

Green tea is the healthiest beverage available (coffee is pretty healthy too). Do you really think God was angry at these plants or was this prohibition an artifact of the 19th Century temperance movement?

I can really understand why Emma and the other sex partners living with Joseph would put their foot down about the tobacco spittle and whiskey bottles strewn about after the School of the Prophets late-night meetings, but tea?
Good faith does not require evidence, but it also does not turn a blind eye to that evidence. Otherwise, it becomes misplaced faith.
-- Moksha

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Linked
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Re: Tea Questions

Post by Linked » Mon Jun 13, 2022 2:19 pm

I missioned in Japan and didn't notice a significant hiccup with the no tea requirement. We would teach it all together with alcohol, tobacco, etc. Often we would bring local members along who could help them navigate it better. They would always stress that it is tea from the specific tea plant that is prohibited, and that other teas are ok, like herbal tea or barley tea.
"I would write about life. Every person would be exactly as important as any other. All facts would also be given equal weightiness. Nothing would be left out. Let others bring order to chaos. I would bring chaos to order" - Kurt Vonnegut

Cnsl1
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Re: Tea Questions

Post by Cnsl1 » Tue Jun 14, 2022 12:55 am

I missioned in Taiwan many years ago and the question of green tea being acceptable or not differed depending on the mission president. I never wanted to drink it because it was served very hot, and it was typically already hot and humid in that country. It tasted like hot water with a slight tea-ish or grass-like flavor, and at the time, I didn't understand why it was so popular. I also did not take the time to understand all the rituals and familial importance associated with the making and serving of tea, because I thought it was ultimately a stupid practice that God didn't really approve. I was the kindest insensitive jerk you ever met, and I sure tried to do everything I was supposed to do.

Fast forward about 4 decades and I drink green tea just about daily, and feel it's one of the healthiest drinks I can pour inside my body. But, our dear prophet cleared up any confusion a year or so ago when he delineated all the "teas" that were prohibited according to the archaic (imo) weird of "wisdom", and green tea was specifically included in the list of things the Lord said we should not partake, especially if you want to get in the temple.

I chuckle to myself when I see faithful TBMs actively promote various energy drinks that I know get their caffeine content exclusively from green tea.

I'm happy that my wife, while not a complete non-believer, paid no attention to the prophet's drivel regarding the "bad teas" and who sets her own health code based on her understanding of health science and on what makes sense to her.

I've seen TBMs scoff at tea and coffee while sucking down a 32oz Dr Pepper, feeling grateful that God saw fit to warn us of the evils of conspiring men in the last days.

I watched my father struggle to avoid and abstain from coffee for most of his life, feeling guilty when he'd break down and have a cup. He started drinking it as a kid, well before he was ever an active Mormon. He used to drink de-caf before being told, no.. that's bad for you too. Hot drinks are not for the body or belly, unless it's anything except coffee or tea, then it's fine. Well, herbal tea is fine because that doesn't have caffeine in it, but decaf coffee is right out. What about coffee cake and coffee ice cream? Sure, they're not hot drinks so they're ok. What about Iced coffee? Now don't try to confuse things, buddy, coffee is right out. Iced or decaffeinated are both bad, unless you freeze it with milk and sugar, then it's ok.

I sometimes wonder how the Word of Wisdom might have been implemented and practiced had the early saints settled in the Carolinas rather than Utah. I'm guessing they would have kinda ignored the parts about tobacco and hot drinks, but by damned wouldn't be eating meat in the summertime!

God gives a heck of a lot more counsel on when and when not to eat meat than he ever does about coffee and tea. Heck, he doesn't even seem to know what those things are. The great creator of the universe, omnipotent God of all living, and he can't even remember how to say coffee and tea? Hot drinks!? Good thing we have prophets to tell us what the hell God meant by "hot drinks" and that he didn't really mean what he said.

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blazerb
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Re: Tea Questions

Post by blazerb » Tue Jun 14, 2022 7:04 am

moksha wrote:
Sun Jun 12, 2022 4:05 pm
I can really understand why Emma and the other sex partners living with Joseph would put their foot down about the tobacco spittle and whiskey bottles strewn about after the School of the Prophets late-night meetings, but tea?
I'm sure you've read enough to have heard that the hot drinks prohibition was Joseph's attempt to put the women in their place. I haven't found much evidence for that. I have seen that temperance movements of that day regularly denounced coffee and tea. I wish we knew more about Emma's feelings on the issue. Does anyone know if she drank tea after JS was killed?

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Hagoth
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Re: Tea Questions

Post by Hagoth » Tue Jun 14, 2022 8:42 am

Cnsl1 wrote:
Tue Jun 14, 2022 12:55 am
Good thing we have prophets to tell us what the hell God meant by "hot drinks" and that he didn't really mean what he said.
Of course the original prohibition against hot drinks was not because of their content, but their temperature. A lot of people in the 19th century were condemning hot drinks based on ancient pseudoscience about throwing your bodily humors out of balance. Or, in the words of Grandpa Simpson, "it agries up the blood!"

I like to point out to Mormons that various church leaders also included things like hot chocolate and soup in the "hot drinks" prohibition, and that Brigham Young gave Scandinavians a free pass on coffee because he considered it culturally important to them.

Iced tea and coffee weren't a thing before the invention of refrigeration, and apparently God couldn't foresee their emergence a few decades later. I wonder what the WoW would have said about iced drinks if they had existed in 1833. Just like germ theory, God appears not to have known about cold drinks because he only knew things that also just happened to exist in Joseph Smith's knowledge base.
“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” -Mark Twain

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blazerb
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Re: Tea Questions

Post by blazerb » Tue Jun 14, 2022 10:07 am

Hagoth wrote:
Tue Jun 14, 2022 8:42 am
Cnsl1 wrote:
Tue Jun 14, 2022 12:55 am
Good thing we have prophets to tell us what the hell God meant by "hot drinks" and that he didn't really mean what he said.
Of course the original prohibition against hot drinks was not because of their content, but their temperature. A lot of people in the 19th century were condemning hot drinks based on ancient pseudoscience about throwing your bodily humors out of balance. Or, in the words of Grandpa Simpson, "it agries up the blood!"

I like to point out to Mormons that various church leaders also included things like hot chocolate and soup in the "hot drinks" prohibition, and that Brigham Young gave Scandinavians a free pass on coffee because he considered it culturally important to them.

Iced tea and coffee weren't a thing before the invention of refrigeration, and apparently God couldn't foresee their emergence a few decades later. I wonder what the WoW would have said about iced drinks if they had existed in 1833. Just like germ theory, God appears not to have known about cold drinks because he only knew things that also just happened to exist in Joseph Smith's knowledge base.
It seems that Hyrum Smith stated that "hot drinks" refers to coffee and tea: https://bycommonconsent.com/2021/09/03/on-hot-drinks/. I think adding other hot drinks to the list may be a later interpretation, but I don't know if it was specified. Apparently David and John Whitmer did not consider tea or coffee to be "hot drinks" before Hyrum's declaration. I wonder what they thought the phrase referred to?

The article also has a link discussing later statements about what hot drinks are including hot water and anything that might be added to it. This reminds me a lot of the stories I was told in South America about how drinking or eating something hot then going outside into the cold would cause permanent deformations to the face and damage the gut. I think the reasoning has the same roots.

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moksha
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Re: Tea Questions

Post by moksha » Tue Jun 14, 2022 10:45 pm

blazerb wrote:
Tue Jun 14, 2022 7:04 am
moksha wrote:
Sun Jun 12, 2022 4:05 pm
I can really understand why Emma and the other sex partners living with Joseph would put their foot down about the tobacco spittle and whiskey bottles strewn about after the School of the Prophets late-night meetings, but tea?
I'm sure you've read enough to have heard that the hot drinks prohibition was Joseph's attempt to put the women in their place. I haven't found much evidence for that. I have seen that temperance movements of that day regularly denounced coffee and tea. I wish we knew more about Emma's feelings on the issue. Does anyone know if she drank tea after JS was killed?
Early 19th Century health science was against both hot and cold drinks. Thankfully, they never included cold drinks on their prohibition list. Once they learned that the hot drink prohibition was hokum, (boiling contaminated water helped) they should have crossed it out rather than penciling in coffee and tea. Later when these were proven to be the healthiest of drinks, it would not have made this LDS gaffe look so lame.
Good faith does not require evidence, but it also does not turn a blind eye to that evidence. Otherwise, it becomes misplaced faith.
-- Moksha

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