Display by Label: Coffee

Cinnamon is nice to have on top of a cappuccino. It mixes with the foam and espresso for the perfect blend of morning bliss. Ground coriander, on the other hand, is typically something you might find in a curry or soup. Although in its container ground coriander may resemble cinnamon (the same way poop, under the right set of circumstances, may resemble chocolate) it does not taste at all good when poured liberally over any sort of warm caffeinated beverage. For this reason, it may be wise to keep the cinnamon and ground coriander on separate sides of the spice rack.

Remember this: I do the hard work so ya'll don't have to. Thank me later.

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The happiest part of my day is picking up coffee from Common Ground on the Avenue. The saddest, most tragic part of my day is taking my last sip. Man, I really need more excitement in my life.

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I've gone off the coffee, which has had some slightly averse effects on my head over the last couple of days. For starters, there's the constant lingering threat of a headache hiding just under the surface. It's a threat I've been able to hold back with tea, but just barely.

What's even more annoying is that I seem to be in a continual state of almost remembering something, which is an unattractive and slightly horrifying way to spend your day. The end result is me staring off in the distance with an expression that is not quite confused, but not quite cognizant. Sort of like the early beginnings of a sneeze. Now, on good days, my memory might be described as slightly defective. But without the full jolt of a 12 oz cup of Starbucks, I would say it has become decidedly flawed . . . and . . . um . . . not quite . . .

. . . eh-hem . . . I thought . . . was there? . . .

. . . Oh, sorry. Where was I?

Oh yes. So I've gone off the coffee, which has had some slightly averse effects on my head over the last couple of days. For starters, there's the constant lingering threat . . .

Shit. See what I mean?

Like millions of other people, my coffee drinking has become habit-forming. I like that expression. Habit-forming. It gets used a lot, typically on warning labels. Watch out: smoking cigarettes is habit-forming. Careful: taking narcotic pain killers can become habit-forming. Strangely, I've never seen the warning on a cup of coffee. But just wait. This is America after all. Somebody is bound to sue over this oversight eventually.

But if you have an addictive personality, the term is meaningless and a little redundant. It's like saying, FYI: Water is wet. I have a knack - you might even call it a talent - for making a habit out of just about anything. It doesn't need to contain any special chemical, get me high, or really do much of anything at all. It just needs to be there. And I don't particularly even need to like the taste or sight of it.

Nevertheless, I don't have an addictive personality. Really. I know this because my brain tells me it's true. And we can trust it. I swear. What I do have is an itsy-bitsy case of the OCD, which seems to turn the expression 'habit-forming' into a synonym for just about anything. For example, here's one: bran muffins.

For the past several weeks, I've turned a simple fondness for bran muffins, into a disturbing fixation. Somewhere along the line, I got in the habit of grabbing a bran muffin along with my coffee each morning. Sometimes I didn't need to pick up coffee - sometimes I'd brew it at home - but I'd still step out for a bran muffin. And if I got bored with Starbucks bran muffins, well I would get one someplace else. I explored the bran-muffin universe: Cosi, Au Bon Pain, random delis around town. . . by the way, did you know Caribou doesn't carry bran muffins? Holy crap. Talk about a cruel discovery. Were it not for the expert negotiation skills and zen-like calmness of that barista, things may have very well ended in violence that morning.

Anyway, it didn't take long before the bran muffin became an integral part of my morning. My well-being depended on it. I started thinking about the bran muffin even before I went to bed. It wasn't just the thing I did when I got up. It was the reason I got up.

When your primary reason for rolling out of bed in the morning is to ingest a bran muffin, it's time to re-evaluate your life.

Now take this behavior and apply it to something that's truly addictive: coffee. Things have been spiraling out of control for me there. It's time for a change.

But I should be clear: I will not go off of caffeine altogether. I see no need to take things to such an extreme solution. I'm just going to take some measures to cut back. First, as I mentioned above, I've started by substituting my morning joe with English Breakfast tea which, according to this chart contains about 300 milligrams less caffeine than my tall cup of Starbucks's finest. And the fact that it's Starbucks, as opposed to other kinds of coffee, is significant. A study published in the Journal of Analytical Toxicology by researcher Bruce A. Goldberger - a study described in this NPR piece - found that there was about a 100 mg more caffeine in a cup of Starbucks than the same cup of Dunkin' Donuts. For years, my dad has been saying that Starbucks must put something else in the coffee because other coffees just don't have the same effect for him anymore. Yeah. That something else is about 100 mg more caffeine per serving. It's the equivalent of crack. And by the way, we're talking about the straight coffee here, not the grande mocha lattes or frappaccinos. It's more accurate to refer to those drinks as 'milk.' No, we're talking about thick black java, in large doses.

So yeah, the tea solution is working out alright, but even though it's a 'black tea,' it still leaves much to be desired. First of all, it's much weaker in taste. I like strong drinks - black coffee, hoppy beer. It's got to taste like it means it. And tea is a sort of half-hearted beverage. It almost means it. And almost doesn't cut it.

The color of tea is all wrong, too. I mean, you can still see through it. What's up with that? A real beverage should have a thick, impenetrable quality to it.

Overall, tea is like a splash of water on the face as opposed to a full shower. But I suppose that is the point, isn't it? It packs just enough punch to help me avoid a headache - and for that I'm grateful - but it still leaves me in a bit of a stupor.

But the tea thing is just a temporary fix. I think the answer, eventually, is to switch back to straight espresso. At first this might seem like a step backwards, but a shot of espresso gives a nice boost with all the coffee goodness, with less overall caffeine - only about 35 mg per shot. This means that even if I have three shots of espresso and one cup of tea during the day, I'll still wind up consuming less caffeine than if I had only one 12 oz cup of coffee at Starbucks, never mind the 20 oz I normally brew for myself at home.

Actually, all this talk about espresso is making me salivate. Come to think of it, why should I wait to implement this new healthier lifestyle? There's no time like the present to supplant old habits with new ones. I'll be back. In the meantime, Happy Drinking!

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Repeat after me: I would like a short cappuccino, please.

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This morning I got up early and drove C to Union Station. She's on a train right now to New Jersey and, thanks to a snazzy EVDO card, she's probably checking her email right now. Of course, thanks to the rocking motion of the train, she might also be sleeping. Either one.

It was still early after dropping C off. Pre-seven AM time. Carmen needed gas, so I figured as long as I was up and in the car I would go ahead and take care of it. I enjoy being up and running errands early in the morning, as the sun is coming up. There's something peaceful about it, even when it's set to the sound of construction, as it is in my neighborhood.

I fueled Carmen, drove her back home and, after circling the block a few times, parked her. Beautiful morning. Temperatures in the 60s. Not humid. Even a soft wind. What is this? Where am I? After the recent heat wave, this felt downright exotic. Now it was time to fuel myself up. I walked to my local Starbucks in a pretty good mood, despite this nagging pain in my upper back that I've had for the last several weeks.

The baristas who work the morning shift at my Starbucks are a friendly lot. The guy slinging drinks this morning was from Boston. We'd had a prior conversation about buying groceries online. He was in favor of it. I don't know his name, but he seems like a nice guy. I call him Boston.

Boston was working by himself at the moment, so he had to do the register and the drinks. His workmate was outside on a cigarette break. He nodded at me when I entered.

The woman in front of me ordered a white mocha latte, and paid for it. She spoke in a thick New York accent to her friend who stood with her in line. They were talking about the expense of traveling. They both wore convention name tags on blue lanyards around their necks.

Before making the woman's drink, Boston went ahead and took my order since he knew I was only getting a coffee, and it would require no preparation. I like that about Boston: he thinks ahead. He poured my coffee and set it on the counter. I paid for the drink and Boston went about making the white mocha latte. As he did this, and as I put away my change, we went on talking. We talked about the weather and the effect it had on moods. I thought how it was nice talking to the local coffee dealer in this familiar way, even though I barely knew him. Casual chit-chat: it makes us feel connected to one-another. There was definitely something about this weather. Good vibes were all around.

For coffee drinkers, there is a haze that surrounds us before we imbibe that first cup. We walk in a cloud. We do not notice the most obvious things, like when a woman, in this case the mocha convention lady from New York, takes our cup of coffee, tall, black . . . not a drop of white chocolate mocha in it . . . and leaves the store. We do not notice these things. Until it is too late.

When I looked down at the counter for my drink, I found that, presently, nothing was there. There had been coffee there. I had seen it. But now, sadly, there was no coffee. I looked up at Boston. My confused expression, which was probably infused with a touch of panic, must have said what I was thinking: "Coffee?!" We looked at each other. He looked at the door. I looked at the door. Stop her! I ran outside, hoping to catch her. But these were New Yorkers, after all. They walk fast. She was already a good distance away. I shouted "Ma'am!" But she did not hear me.

I went back inside. Boston poured me another drink. "Well, I guess she'll come back when she takes her first sip."

"I guess," I said.

But I felt guilty for not running after her. I had a vision of this poor woman, sitting down for her first panel discussion of the day at whatever convention she was attending and taking that first delightful sip of what she thinks will be a white chocolate mocha latte only to get a mouthful of bitter black coffee. A rude awakening, to be sure. I had to do something.

I thanked Boston for the joe, then left the store. It was a little out of my way, but I went after the mocha lady and her friend. I had to walk pretty fast, but I eventually caught up with them after a couple of blocks.

"Ma'am?"

She seemed startled at first. But then she seemed to recognize me from the store. That, or simply because I had a Starbucks cup in my hand, I appeared trustworthy.

"Sorry. I think you grabbed my black coffee off the counter, instead of your drink."

She looked at the color of the liquid through the little sip hole in the top of her Starbucks assembly. She did this for an oddly long period of time, turning the cup this way and that. I think she was hoping that her eyes were betraying her. That what she was seeing in there wasn't a murky black, but rather the familiar light brown color she was used to. When she finally realized I was correct, she looked up at me with a sad expression of defeat and just said one word: "Damn."

I understood how she felt. It's disheartening to walk two blocks with the wrong cup of coffee in your hands.

"I just wanted to let you know before you got too far."

"Thanks."

I felt bad. If the mocha had been ready I would have taken it to her. But it hadn't. And now she had to walk two blocks back to her drink. It was no way to start a morning. But at least the weather was good.

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