#155: Coffee Break
My life with and without coffee, a few thoughts about Michael Pollan's "This Is Your Brain on Plants," and J.S. Bach's Coffee Cantata.
When I was growing up, coffee wasn’t served in our home. My mom, a music teacher, did have an electric percolator that was tucked on a shelf in the pantry. She pulled it out a couple of times a year to serve coffee at piano recitals. I remember her hem-hawing and wondering how much ground canned coffee to add. It would perk away and the smell, not aroma, of a brew—sometimes weak, sometimes strong—made from coffee that had probably been sitting on the pantry shelf for who knows how long, wafted through the house. It was one I really didn’t like.
My dad drank “Boston Coffee” for dessert on those rare occasions we went out to dinner. It’s made with lots of cream and sugar, leaving just enough room for a splash of coffee. I don’t recall that he ever drank this at home or next door at his mortuary but anyone who might have been over there wouldn’t be telling on him if he did.
My sophomore year in high school is when I had my first real cup of coffee. My girlfriends and I would go out on a weekend to a diner and drink cup after cup of coffee as we discussed boys and big ideas as one is want to do in those years. A few years later the very Bohemian mom of a college era boyfriend introduced me to coffee in a Chemex. I loved hanging out with her even after her son and I broke up. Her coffee seemed so…grown up.
When I was going to music school in NYC in the early 70s, an ABT dancer and I parked our bottoms in a booth at a coffee shop near Lincoln Center and ordered cups of java. When they were empty, the waitress came by asking if we wanted more. We said, “yes, thank you.” She poured, repeating the process numerous times. When she brought the check, we were stunned to see that we owed ten dollars! Back then, that much money could have bought groceries for a week or a really nice meal out, but here we were owing that much for coffee. When we questioned it, she showed us the menu that plainly stated there was a charge for refills…probably to keep people like us from taking up restaurant real estate.
When I returned to the west coast, I frequented Bay Area coffee houses where there were beans from exotic sounding places. My favorite was Celebes Kalossi, also known as Sulawesi. Peet’s on College Ave in Berkeley was just a few blocks away from where I lived for a time. Every day I walked to the store, the rich aroma pulling me like a homing beacon, and queued up for a delicious cup.
I bought freshly ground beans and brewed them in a white porcelain Melitta drip coffee pot and was overjoyed when my grandmother gave me an electric Krupps grinder. I think it was the best and most appreciated gift she ever gave me.
When my mom became terminally ill, I moved back to Santa Barbara to care for her and would stop by Vices and Spices for a cup of coffee and a little time out, in the process becoming lifelong friends with the owner Blue, who founded the shop back in 1975. I still check in there on visits “home.”
I love the smell and sound of the beans as they are ground and the ritual of boiling water and waiting for the perfect cup, but realized that I was drinking way way way too much. Before the sun was up I would make my first cup in a little 3-shot Moka pot and settle in to write. About mid-morning I would make myself another three shots. Later in the afternoon and feeling a lull, I would make another three. When I added all of that up, I was drinking nine shots of espresso in a day. No question about it. I needed to stop. So I did. Cold turkey and it wasn’t pretty.
Once my decision was made, I placed the grinder, beans, and Moka pot on a shelf in the pantry next to its 6 and 12-cup relations. The next morning came around and I didn’t bring them back out. The headache came first—a band above my eyes and around my head. I figured that was normal as I had experienced it on those days when I missed that first dose, but it got worse with each passing hour. By the afternoon, I was alternating sweating and shivering. By nighttime, I was shaking and nauseous and light hurt my eyes, too, so I went to bed. Several times I got up with dry heaves and crawled back under the covers with my now pounding head. I was having a withdrawal. If this is what a withdrawal from coffee is like, I can’t imagine what one is like for those who are trying to move away from harder substances. I made it through the night, dragged myself out of bed in the morning feeling wiped out and dehydrated. The headache was mostly gone but I spent the rest of the day resting and recovering. That was sixteen months ago and I haven’t had a cup since that day. I would like to think that I never will again because I’m afraid that once I take that first sip I’ll be a right back where I was.
There are many versions of addiction and the addiction to caffeine— also known by the scientific name: 1, 3, 7-trimethylxanthine—is one of them. In his book, This Is Your Mind on Plants, author Michael Pollan writes of the mental fog he experienced when getting off of coffee so he could be his own test subject while researching and writing about the effects of caffeine. He writes of how he feels that caffeine keeps him focused as he works. When giving it up the “lovely dispersal of the mental fog that the first hit of caffeine ushers into consciousness never arrived. The fog settled over me and would not budge.” I have been off caffeine for well over a year now and have not found that to be the case. I feel centered, calm, and able to focus as well as, if not better, than I did while ingesting so much of it.
Coffee is not verboten in my house. Far from it. If you want a cup with a piece of pie, I’m more than happy to bring out the beans, fill the pot with water, while reveling in the aroma and ritual of making it for you. I just don’t drink it. In a way, it is much like me not being able to eat my bakes made with AP flour since 2006 when I was diagnosed with celiac disease. Whether coffee, cookies, cake, or pie, I find great joy in sharing what I make and indeed that feeling is tremendously satisfying.
Book for Today
This Is Your Mind on Plants by Michael Pollan
Any book by Pollan is great. This is no exception.
Music for Today
"Coffee Cantata" BWV 211
If Bach wrote an opera, I think this would be it. He loved his coffee, too. This is a marvelous performance, too.
Herr Vater, seid doch nicht so scharf!
Father, don’t be so hard!
Wenn ich des Tages nicht dreimal
If three times a day I can’t
Mein Schälchen Coffee trinken darf,
drink my little cup of coffee,
So werd ich ja zu meiner Qual
then I would become so upset
Wie ein verdorrtes Ziegenbrätchen
that I would be like dried up piece of roast goat.
Here’s a link to the full text.
Bake with Kate: May 7
We’ll be making fried pies, easy, fun, delicious…good with coffee. 😉
Here’s the link to register.
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Tea Time
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Thank you wonderful information !
I had to give up coffee because it irritated my stomach. I still make one cup of coffee for my husband in the morning. He only drinks one and it gives me a delightful hit of the great coffee smell. I recently gave up black tea...so I'm truly caffeine free and rarely miss it. But good beans freshly ground still smell so good.