As everyone knows, this economy stinks. Ben and I know it better than most people, perhaps; we have both been laid off from our jobs, and despite being generally spoiled, we are facing the realities of tightening our belts. No more happy hours at the Yard House with ahi poke appetizers and Thai pizza. No more outlet shopping, spending money on shoes we really don’t need whatsoever. No more toys for the kids, except on birthdays and Christmas.

Which means I had to take a serious look at my Diet Coke habit. I’m a well-known Diet Cokehead and can easily go through a 12-pack in a day. We’ve long since gone from good California zinfandel and craft brews to Yellow Tail shiraz and Bud Lite, but the Diet Coke habit needed looking at, too. So one day I went to my left-hand pantry and beheld: Tea.

I buy tea the way some women buy shoes or bath salts. I can’t go to Cost Plus or any other specialty store without being seduced by some interesting or exotic tea. So half of our left-hand pantry — fully one-quarter of our available dry-foods storage space — is packed with myriad packages of tea. So I’ve resolved to ease up on the Diet Coke, which I have to buy, and explore the teas, which I already have, instead.

It rocks. Yesterday I had a cup of oolong, a cup of brown rice green tea, a cup of green tea with coconut, lemongrass and ginger, and some just good old plain black tea from England. This morning it’s black tea with peach, and up next I’m pondering either rooibos or perhaps some white tea with jasmine or with pear (I have both, of course). Quite apart from the antioxidant benefits, which they say are considerable (who are THEY and why do they care about my tea?), I’m having a hell of a time just enjoying the pleasures of drinking tea, which I’d quite forgotten.

Ben laughed yesterday and said that these are the pleasures of old age — you come to appreciate tea, you start to really savor hot soup. So be it. But if you need a comfort in tough times, break out the tea, put your feet up, and breathe in the steam. It really works, and it’s so much cheaper and cleaner than psychoanalysis, drug abuse, whoremongering or a messy breakdown.