Coffee

I think I just threw up in my coffee.

 

I drink, on average, a pot of coffee every night at work. There are some days I won't drink any at all, but there are others where I'll drink 8-10 cups, occasionally more. Funny thing is, I NEVER drink coffee at home. If I did, I'd never sleep.

 

One of the nicer aspects of the new non-j job (which I'm coming up on my year anniversary of next week, so I suppose I should stop calling it new): free coffee. Decent stuff, too, not like the bargain-basement giant can of swill we all used to pitch in to buy at Ye Olde Newsroom. The bosses provide us with two single-cup brewing machines and lots and lots of packets of coffee. I probably visit the machine four or five times a day. Then I go home and make a pot of Dunkin Donuts blend. An after-dinner coffee while curled up on the couch is a fine, fine thing.

I've trained myself to drink it black. It's an acquired taste, definitely (took me a couple weeks to be able to really swill it), but now that I've adapted to it the frou-frou coffees seem watery by comparison. Fewer calories, and lots of sugar with my coffee tends to give me a headache.

 

One extra large double double from Tims around 7:45 a.m. before I jump on the bus to work. Maybe one more in the morning if someone is making a Tims run. Don't drink it in the afternoon or evening unless I am killing time on the road before a game.

On the weekends I brew 3-4 cups worth of President's Choice Great Canadian (JR got stuck into it one day at my place).

I will have one can of Coke a day, usually with lunch.

 

For about 10 years, I worked for PM papers, and had to be at my desk by 530-6 in the morning. For much of this period, I was commuting 25 miles or so (each way) to work.

When I was doing that, and especially through the cold dark winter months, I used to swill coffee by the gallon.

I'd load up my 4-cup mini-coffeemaker before I went to bed, hit the button in the morning before I stepped into the shower, slurp down a cup while I was getting dressed, then pour the rest into a travel mug for the half-hour drive through the pre-dawn gloom.

When I got to the office, usually my second task, after throwing the film into the developing tanks, was to fire up the newsroom coffee pot so there'd be hot brew when everyone else arrived.

I'd bet before I was all done by about noon, I'd downed 6-8 cups.

Nowadays, I work on an AM, and we go from 5:30 p.m.-1:30 a.m. I drink probably a cup of coffee every three or four days. Something about waking up at 10-11 a.m. as opposed to 4 a.m. just isn't as conducive to coffee guzzling.

 

I brew a pot every day of the week and drink one cup. I special order a 5 lb. bag of a hazelnut blend of Alterra, a roaster out of Milwaukee. It's the best ever.

 

Coffee? What's that?

Mountain Dew, on the other hand ...

I'm trying to make water my drink of choice in the mornings, leaving the Mountain Dew to go with my lunch and the occasional gulp in the afternoons - it's part of a goal to slow down my consumption of the green stuff. Now to slow down consumption late at night ...

 

Coffee and I have a beautiful relationship.

I started drinking it when I was 11 because I heard it stunted your growth. I was already taller than most of my teachers. Hooked ever since.

In high school I could take down about a six pack of Mountain Dew a day, but coffee was a social thing. I was totally a child of the coffee shop culture.

These days I have about five travel mugs that I have on rotation for coffee I make at home, or I am a regular at the local Starbucks drive-thru. I can't go without or I get that nasty caffeine-withdrawl headache. And I swear I can't think straight until I've had my coffee.

Can't drink it black, but I also can't stand a lot of sweet crap in my coffee. A little skim milk is all I need.

At home I have a 4-cup machine for coffee, and I also have a separate 4-cup for making tea. Just stick a bag or two in the pot and let the water brew it. If I had a bigger kitchen, I'd totally get an espresso machine.

 

11? You have a problem!

 

Anywhere from 4-8 cans of diet pepsi keep me going throughout the day.

If I get dragged to a Starbucks, get me a mocha frapp with an extra pump of mocha so it's more chocolate than coffee.

I do like coffee iced cream..does that count?