Coffee, Regular

I hold the 90's personally responsible for the complication of one of my life's most simplest pleasures, the cup of coffee. It seems I have been searching all my life for, not just the world's best pair of jeans, but more importantly for a great cup of coffee. To date, the best coffee I have ever had took place in the heat of a mid-day Jamaican afternoon. I can still remember the smell....like rich chocolate and roasted hickory mixed with tropical rain & warm milk. We saddled up to the empty resort restaurant bar around 4pm and experienced an island delicacy - fresh grown Blue Mountain Coffee with warmed milk. Timing must be carefully considered when partaking in afternoon coffee. It must take place well after a meal, preferable after a quick 20-30 minute afternoon nap. Coffee upon waking increases its enjoyment factor exponentially. Therefor, napping must take place just prior. But it must also take place well before your evening meal so as to be enjoyed solely on its own merits. Yes, afternoon coffee timing is critical. There are, of course, a few exceptions to this rule. One being, cookies.

The second best cup of coffee I have ever experienced was on a cruise. It is probably not coincidental that my best coffee experiences both took place while traveling. So, this might be a bias I need to consider. It was a beautiful day at sea.... we had lounged by the pool all afternoon, having had the ship to ourselves. We are not really what you would call 'excursion' people. We aren't 'travel people'. About mid-way through any trip, we begin to seriously consider how to get home early. Our afternoon of laze was of course followed by nap time. Upon waking around 4pm, the optimal coffee hour, we learned we could make a phone call to order 'room coffee' - which I highly recommend. Room coffee can be accomplished at home by simply making your way to the coffee pot while remaining sleepy, making a cup of coffee through half-open eyes, and quickly climbing back into bed before your mind realizes you've woke. Should you find yourself on a cruise, though, you can simply make a phone call. Which we did. I called our room attendant and asked him if we could possibly have a pot of coffee delivered to the room and I will never forget this perfect gentleman's reply, "....just coffee? No cookies?!" My heart sang.... cookies, yes, of course we needed cookies with our coffee! So simple, so uncomplicated. So un-90's Seattle style coffee house movie. (Only notable exception: So I Married an Axe Murderer - solely due to the inclusion of coffee house beatnik poetry.)

So I Married An Ax Murderer

The 90's coffee house took us so far from coffee's roots: the diner, or coffee shop. A place where film noir sleuths met dames on the run and where the expression, 'Coffee, regular.' with the toss of a nickel across the counter got you a hot, black, steaming cup o' joe. We are a long way from those days when coffee was coffee, not a liquid dessert. Take for example the coffee mecca, Starbucks. The nutrition information for all Starbucks drinks may be found at their website, starbucks.com. The Caffe Vanilla Frappuccino is made with roast coffee, vanilla bean powder, combined with milk and ice and topped with whipped cream. The websites boasts it ' Tastes like happiness.' This Grande cup of happiness, when made with 2% milk and no whip brings in a whopping 68g of carbohydrates from its 67g of sugar. No, I think it is fair to say, coffee is not coffee anymore.

We've tried it all on our hunt for the best coffee to suit our taste and nutritional preferences. Over the last year, I have adopted a style of eating which is anti-inflammatory in nature. I will get into more details about this style of eating as this blog progresses, but where coffee is concerned it started with removing the sugar and half & half creamer. I traded the half & half for for full fat whipping cream, but the sugar had to go. We have learned as we continued with this style of eating that sugar is a huge culprit in our bodies comfort in regard to inflammation, bloating, joint pain, headaches, sleep, mood, etc. I have long known sugar causes me severe depression, but the thought of removing it completely from my intake was overwhelming. One day, when I had enough of feeling bloated and sad, a mental switch flipped & I was done with it. Getting off sugar was not easy and let's just say my mood was not much improved - it merely switched from depressed to pissed. The withdrawals were not pleasant - but I'll save this discussion for a deeper dive in an upcoming post.

I could have switched out the sugar for a substitute but this just seems to keep the sweet cravings alive and quite honestly, it corrupts the beauty that is coffee's actual flavor. There was criteria, though, that had to be met for the perfect cup of coffee.

1. It had to be hot and ready on demand. Enter the Keurig phase. My issue with the Keurig was, it just was not hot enough nor did the coffee taste 'coffee' enough. I believe the water filtration process just did not express a strong enough flavor for my preferences. There was also a long painful phase where we attempted to set a coffee pot for the mornings. This, more often than not, resulted in forgotten filters, old grinds accidentally left in, and my personal favorite - no water put in the chamber. After one cold coffee covered countertop morning too many, we nixed the 'set the coffee' ritual.

2. It had to be easy. Enter the espresso machine & milk frother days. No one can say I did not try to make a go of the coffee house style espresso machine and frother. It was just so difficult to get right. The grounds seemed to go everywhere and the milk steamer was eternally clogged. When it steamed the milk, it remained cold on top. Let's face it, if I cant make a heart in my cappuccino, I'm just not drinking it.

3. It had to taste like... coffee. Which brings us to current day and what I consider to be the best at home cup of coffee, the Nespresso DeLonghi CitiZ. This little baby is awesome. It has a slimline design, heats up fast, and uses bars of pressure to express the coffee, which makes it taste like, well, coffee! This one's a winner in our house.

After a few months of using the Nespresso and enjoying my coffee with whipping cream, I found I was back to pretty severe abdominal bloating and discomfort. Since summer was just around the corner, I decided to make the switch to iced coffee with cold-frothed, unsweetened, clean vanilla almond milk in the mornings. (Yes, the Nespresso can froth cold milk!) There's something about a cold cup of coffee on a summer morning that kind of gets you going, verses sitting on the couch caressing a hot cup, wrapped in a throw blanket, and scrolling YouTube videos until noon. Somehow, the cold drink seems to get me moving a lil' faster. Sometimes I throw in some cinnamon for a splash of pizzazz! While I admit, it's not as fancy or sweet as that Caffe Vanilla Frappuccino, it is a choice to drink coffee, not a dessert.

So, that's where I am at, coffee-wise, these days. Thanks to the Nespresso, my coffee (hot or cold) tastes like coffee and making the switch to a clean almond milk has almost instantly relieved the new bloating issues. Which is not surprising, given that most humans develop some level of dairy intolerance with age. As with all things, it takes time to adapt to these changes. It's not easy to get the sugar out of your coffee if that is how you've always drank it, but it is one small attainable change you can make today. Making one change at a time, for 10 days and really taking the time to explore how you feel can be life changing. It is in these baby steps where we find our personal power and self-motivation to do more, to be better. As you begin to take hold of your vessel, you will fight a strong current of habituation, pushing back against these changes. Hold tight to the wheel. You are stronger than you think.