Jamoke

About a year ago I started drinking coffee again.

I’d avoided coffee for at least 25 years, and for a very good reason: it made me sick.  If I had coffee— even coffee ice cream— in a few days I’d come down with stomach pains, sometimes very severe, and they’d go on for days.  This was part of the gastritis from which I’d been suffering since I was 22— coffee was the only thing I knew of that would absolutely bring on a gastritis attack.

Working this out took a number of years, because the cause and effect wasn’t clear.  I’d have coffee, but I wouldn’t get sick for several days, during which time I’d be eating and drinking other stuff.  But eventually I finally figured out the equation: coffee=pain.  Not liking pain, I quit.

I drank tea.  Lots and lots of tea.

Six years ago I was in the hospital having various organs removed, and I wondered if my gastritis was caused, at least in part, by the gall bladder that had gone all necrotic and which had to be sliced out of me.   (Clearly this gall bladder was Not My Friend.)  But after the hospital stay I had a few minor attacks, nothing like the days of pain and agony I used to have, and they convinced me to stay on my meds and to stay away from coffee.

But I still continued to wonder whether I could try coffee again.  Maybe it wasn’t me that had a problem with coffee, maybe it was my gall bladder— maybe my gall bladder still had a problem with coffee, but as the gall bladder and I had parted, it wouldn’t be my problem any longer.  But I never made the experiment, because I didn’t feel I could afford to take a week out of my life to be sick.

About a year ago, I decided it was time to find out.

That was when I fully realized that coffee drinking has really changed.  When I was drinking coffee in my youth, the only coffee available was crap coffee.  There was Folgers, and there was Hills Brothers.  There were a few places in New Mexico where I could get espresso, but it was crap espresso— basically the coffee beans that got burnt during roasting got turned into espresso. This wasn’t San Francisco or Seattle, this was New Mexico, which got the crap end of everything.

When I quit coffee, there was only one Starbucks in the world, and it didn’t serve coffee.  It sold coffee beans. You had to buy the beans and make the coffee at home.

So now, having decided to have coffee, I had to figure out what kind of coffee to have.  The choices now are a bit startling: there are lattes, cappucinos, frappucinos, flavored coffees, macchiatos, mistos, mochas, and the ever-popular Iced Peppermint White Chocolate Mocha.

I decided to go for a latte, because it was cut with milk, and I wasn’t sure what straight coffee or espresso would do to my system.

I remember this taste, I thought.   I used to like this taste. The taste wasn’t particularly inviting on renewed acquaintance.

I drank my coffee and I got a buzz.  I was actually high.  I was alert.  I was functioning at a high level.  I got a lot accomplished.

I remember this, I thought.

I waited a few days and I didn’t get sick.  So I had another latte, and another, and then various other coffee drinks.  I finished my last book in a blast of caffeine-fueled creativity.

Dang!  This is good stuff!

I drink coffee most days now.  I haven’t got sick.  I haven’t had any pain.  I’m just more awake than I’ve been in, say, 25 years.

I’m not any less lazy, but I think more intently about not being lazy than previously.

I’m also in the process of working out what kinds of coffee I like.  I have an awful lot to choose from.

Turns out I’m in favor of the darker, richer brews, your French roasts and whatnot.  Malcolm Gladwell says that most Americans say they like dark, rich coffee, but that they actually drink weak, milky coffee.  I’m not one of those.

I’ve decided that flavored coffees are the invention of the Devil.  Who is putting these almonds in my coffee? I ask.  Must be Satan!

I tried Kona and liked it, but I didn’t like it 400% better than other coffee, and that’s what it cost, so I didn’t buy any more.  I’ve developed a liking for Cafe du Monde coffee, which I suspect is crap coffee, but I don’t care, it wakes me up.

And now, having awakened, at least for the day, I’m going to go to my writing computer, and try to write like a coffee-tokin’ fiend.