Dear Gramps,

My question is: Where can we draw the line on things like de-caf and herbal tea? (Both of which I would have considered okay by the Church.) In Japan, green tea, for example, is considered a health drink and members are commonly ridiculed when we refuse to drink it for “health reasons.”

Dale, from Japan

Dear Dale,

Not only are people who obstain from tea ridiculed in Japan, but in England also, as it is a deeply ingrained national drink for the English.

As for me, I avoid de-caf like I would any other coffee, because I understand that coffee is against the Word of Wisdom. I don’t need to analyze it for its ingredients in an attempt to justify an exception. However, herbal teas are not against the Word of Wisdom. In fact, herbal medicine was practiced by the people in Book of Mormon times, i.e.,

And there were some who died with fevers, which at some seasons of the year were very frequent in the land–but not so much so with fevers, because of the excellent qualities of the many plants and roots which God had prepared to remove the cause of diseases, to which men were subject by the nature of the climate (Alma 46:40).

Gramps