Decaf by Choice

Welcome back, dear reader. It’s good to see you.

Coffee.

To caffeinate or not?

I choose not most of the time, though I adore coffee.

We all know what it is and what it can do for us. The potential for a great day is in every cup.

Right…

Many of us start each day by waking up bleary eyed stumbling/shuffling to our kitchens. Here we grab our favorite cup.

If we don’t have our favorite cup the ritual cannot be deemed a success.

Some of us will pour coffee from a pot. Others will place their cups under their single serve coffee machines, push a button, and wait for their cup to fill. And still others will mix hot water and instant grounds together. However it is done, it’s done on your terms.

If you do have to go out to acquire your coffee I do hope you rub that bleariness from your eyes before running to your favorite coffee shop.

Regardless of how that first cup of coffee is acquired those of us that have coffee in our lives feel that we can’t live without this precious liquid.

Coffee.

We drink it for the aromatic taste, to share a beverage with another fellow human, and for its caffeine, of course.

I loved caffeine, well up until I didn’t.

It helped me write papers, get through night shift work, and powering through days when I didn’t get enough sleep.

For those of us that drink coffee daily we all know the importance of not missing more than a day or two. If you do be prepared to start paying the price, immediately.

Payment is collected in the form of irritability, feeling extra tired, headaches, and just feeling unwell.

Two years ago I had decided that I wanted to curb my reliance on coffee, well specifically caffeine.

So, I paid the price each day for what seemed like five days. When I came out on the other side I realized that I had gained something. That something came in feeling calm.

As I would pull myself out of bed each morning I would grab my favorite cup, place some water in my electric kettle, set to boil, and tear open a package of herbal tea.

My mornings without caffeine were slower. Instead of going from five to one-hundred-and-twenty I went from five to a steady eighty to one-hundred.

But, I missed the smell of coffee, the slightly bitter sweet taste, and the social interactions of drinking coffee with others.

What to do, I thought.

Decaf coffee had been percolating at the back of my mind, though I had sworn early on in my life that I would never purchase the stuff, much less drink it. Though now in my post-caffeine era I turned to it.

Decaf I quickly realized was amazing. My first sip of coffee in over two weeks brought a warmth to my heart that I had craved. The coffee held every attribute even without the caffeine.

Over the past two years I went from one extreme to another extreme to balance. I only drank caffeinated coffee and then only drank decaf and now I will one to two times a week drink caffeinated coffee.

Why the balance? Well, it took the extremes to figure out what worked for me and what I enjoyed. Most of the time I allow my body to work off of its own rhythm of energy fluctuations, but as most of you all know it is nice to add a boost. The difference is I control when that boost happens and I check how I am feeling mentally before consuming caffeine.

So, now when I wake up in the morning I check how I am feeling. I don’t drink caffeinated coffee at home. If I want it, I go out for it. It adds a bit of extra work to prove I’m making a caffeinated choice.

I will see you all in the next post, dear readers.

-Abe