I've stopped drinking coffee. I used to drink quite a bit of it--I had an espresso machine at my desk, and drank anywhere from one to three a day. Good stuff, too, from the roaster across the parking lot from my office. In January my ex came out to visit, and I brought the machine home so there'd be coffee in the morning, and I never brought the machine back to my desk. Since then, I've had the very occasional half cup of the weak office coffee. But in general: I no longer need coffee, because my recently transformed overall mood and outlook on life has been providing me with a wonderful and seemingly sourceless energy, and when I do have strong coffee like espresso, I feel a little strung out.
Also: there's been chocolate, which may have helped me through any withdrawal I might have had. A bit each day, dark, single-origin stuff made with cocoa from around the world: places like Madagascar, Cuba, the Philippines, even a single village in Venezuela. I have a small piece of 100% dark by way of breakfast, which sounds awful if you're thinking of baking chocolate, but is really just phenomenal. I share it--the other chocolate, that is, my fellow devotees weren't all that mad about the 100%--at the office, which is fun and amusing, because the really good chocolate is psychoactive. It's a bit like handing out sweet mellow drugs at work. It's complex and rich, so we sit in the cubicle for a few minutes and talk about the flavors much as one would talk about wine: the notes, the roast, the finish. There's a bar made with cocoa beans from Cuba, produced by François Pralus, that is so...well, Cuban...that I swear it's got tobacco notes.
Which could just be me being a pretentious knob. But there's no denying that a bar from Ecuador is different than a bar from Chuao, and the whole experience is in danger of turning me into one of those hipster doofuses who's got that One Thing that he's really, really into, like bicycles or cheese or beer. I may have to move to Portland.
There's a shop in town, a little Mecca for the other brown bean, where I buy bars to stash in my desk drawer and dole out in the afternoon, when the slump hits. Every once in awhile I'll go to the shop during lunch, accompanied by a lovely lass if I'm lucky, bulk up the stash, and have coffee. A couple of weeks ago I had a double espresso and three different sorts of freshly-bought chocolate, and at 11:30 that night I didn't see how I was going to get to sleep much before one AM.
Today I restrained myself: a single espresso, with a mere two varieties of cocoa goodness later on in the afternoon. But around dinner time I said to my mother, "I feel a bit strung out right now, I'm not sure why." Then I remembered: the caffeine. The coffee, plus the smaller amounts in the chocolate, sets my chest to thrumming and my ears to ringing. I can't believe that I used to drink as much coffee as I did. No wonder I was such a wreck.
There's a lot of things I don't do now that I used to do which contributed to an overall state of mind that could best be described as "miserable." I don't really drink any more, that was a big deal for awhile. I stepped away from pot long ago. And now, it seems, caffeine has joined the list of Substances That Just Aren't Helpful. I don't think that chocolate will join those ranks, it's too fun and innocuous. Besides, it's good for you.
And now--having exercised such coffee-related restraint--it's actually time for bed, where I'll dream cocoa dreams and wake up with my face stuck to the pillow.
Also: there's been chocolate, which may have helped me through any withdrawal I might have had. A bit each day, dark, single-origin stuff made with cocoa from around the world: places like Madagascar, Cuba, the Philippines, even a single village in Venezuela. I have a small piece of 100% dark by way of breakfast, which sounds awful if you're thinking of baking chocolate, but is really just phenomenal. I share it--the other chocolate, that is, my fellow devotees weren't all that mad about the 100%--at the office, which is fun and amusing, because the really good chocolate is psychoactive. It's a bit like handing out sweet mellow drugs at work. It's complex and rich, so we sit in the cubicle for a few minutes and talk about the flavors much as one would talk about wine: the notes, the roast, the finish. There's a bar made with cocoa beans from Cuba, produced by François Pralus, that is so...well, Cuban...that I swear it's got tobacco notes.
Which could just be me being a pretentious knob. But there's no denying that a bar from Ecuador is different than a bar from Chuao, and the whole experience is in danger of turning me into one of those hipster doofuses who's got that One Thing that he's really, really into, like bicycles or cheese or beer. I may have to move to Portland.
There's a shop in town, a little Mecca for the other brown bean, where I buy bars to stash in my desk drawer and dole out in the afternoon, when the slump hits. Every once in awhile I'll go to the shop during lunch, accompanied by a lovely lass if I'm lucky, bulk up the stash, and have coffee. A couple of weeks ago I had a double espresso and three different sorts of freshly-bought chocolate, and at 11:30 that night I didn't see how I was going to get to sleep much before one AM.
Today I restrained myself: a single espresso, with a mere two varieties of cocoa goodness later on in the afternoon. But around dinner time I said to my mother, "I feel a bit strung out right now, I'm not sure why." Then I remembered: the caffeine. The coffee, plus the smaller amounts in the chocolate, sets my chest to thrumming and my ears to ringing. I can't believe that I used to drink as much coffee as I did. No wonder I was such a wreck.
There's a lot of things I don't do now that I used to do which contributed to an overall state of mind that could best be described as "miserable." I don't really drink any more, that was a big deal for awhile. I stepped away from pot long ago. And now, it seems, caffeine has joined the list of Substances That Just Aren't Helpful. I don't think that chocolate will join those ranks, it's too fun and innocuous. Besides, it's good for you.
And now--having exercised such coffee-related restraint--it's actually time for bed, where I'll dream cocoa dreams and wake up with my face stuck to the pillow.
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