Well, I only got a 4 rep max on the bench press this week while aiming for a 5RM:
Out of all the 4 major barbell lifts that I do, the bench press benefits most from a little bit of psyching up and aggression. At least for me. I'll inject more of this next week when I attempt 5 reps again.
Other than that, my lower back seems to be aching more than normal, so I might "de-load" this week. We'll see.
I wrote a post before about adding whey protein to coffee, but for some reason it never occurred to me to add whey protein to tea.
I recently discovered that adding whey protein powder to tea makes it taste a bit like bubble tea, but without the bubbles.
It also reminds me a bit of the Malaysian milk tea Teh tarik aka “pulled tea”, but without the “pulling” as shown below:
I’ve had pulled tea at JJ Market before, but pretty sure not from this guy!
Anyway, here’s what happened:
The other day, I saw some left over Lipton “Yellow Label” tea inside of a mug on the counter.
I was in the middle of making my protein-energy drink at the time. Seeing that there was still some tea sitting in that mug, and I fill up my shaker cup yet, I took this mug of leftover tea and dumped it in with the whey protein.
I really had no idea what to expect, because I have never tried this or read of anyone mixing whey protein with tea.
It turned out tasting a little bit like bubble tea, or milk tea. Pretty yummy!
I tried making it again by putting a teabag in a mug, adding boiling water to it and let it sit for a while until it cools down.
Then I poured the tea from the mug into my shaker cup. This is a bit of a pain in the ass.
Problem with making tea in a mug is that I had to repeat this step 3 times before filling the shaker mug with tea.
So the next idea I had was to use a big Pyrex measuring cup to make the tea first, before pouring it into the shaker cup:
After leaving it in for 15 minutes, I pour it into the shaker cup:
Works pretty well!
After pouring the tea into the shaker cup, I took the tea bag and squeeze out every last bit of “juice” I can get.
Here are some pictures of me demonstrating my pinch grip strength:
At this point, it still feels a bit hot, so I stick it in the freezer for about 10 minutes to cool down the tea before adding whey protein powder to it.
Today, I’m going to add 1 scoop of that chemically tasting vanilla flavor Elite whey protein, and 1 scoop of the chocolate truffle flavored Ultimate Nutrition Whey Sensation 81 protein which supposedly “expires” this month (still have 9 x 2 lb tubs left).
I also added 5 grams of creatine to the mix, because these days I mix creatine with my protein shake.
Shake it up, and drink. Tastes really good! Better than mixing it with plain ol’ water.
Personally I’ve only tried this with Lipton green tea and yellow tea, and it’s really a mild tea flavor.
In the future, I’d like to experiment with something stronger like black tea, or other flavors.
There’s a few people on Fitocracy who have tried this out already. Here are some combinations that work well:
Chai green tea + vanilla whey protein
Iced mango peach tea + vanilla whey protein
Black tea + strawberry whey protein
However, one kind of tea I probably won’t try anytime soon is Ginseng tea
Yeah…I just don’t think Ginseng tea combined with whey protein would work well. Not 100% sure though.
With the many variety of teas available on the market, and the multitude of different flavors of whey protein, the possibilities are endless.
