Caffeine nation

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I have not been drinking much coffee for the last ten months, because of my kidney stones. (I read something online about “dark beverages” making them worse, and – although no one can really quite agree about what causes kidney stones – I decided to make the great sacrifice.)

 

 

 

It hasn’t been that bad. I have a cup or two of coffee in the morning, just to wake up; then, at work, I switch over to a mug of ice water. I like the sound of the ice tinkling in the cup; it reminds me of summer evenings on the veranda.

 

 

 

But, while in France recently, I decided to drink coffee again. Why not? They brew coffee the way I really like it: brutally strong and dark. Even the instant Nescafe in the hotel was delicious. I had three or four cups every morning, and usually a cup or two more after lunch or dinner. It was invigorating. (Most days I took a Xanax too, just to keep from vibrating myself to death.)

 

 

 

The French love their coffee. There’s a café / bistro every few yards; I saw very few people eating, but everyone was having a cup of coffee. We watched a French TV game show one evening – one of those stupid panel things where comedians try to top one another – and they were jumping around and screaming so much, you’d have sworn they were all on meth.  Aha! I thought. Caffeine!

 

 

 

My kidney stones hardly bothered me at all during the trip. Okay, I thought. So much for “dark beverages.” So, upon my return to the office, I went back to my cup-of-coffee-every-fifteen-minutes routine.

 

 

 

I became a different person.

 

 

 

I was snappish and irritable. I popped off at people. I became anxious about stupid things. (Also, my kidney stones began gnawing at me again. Go figure.)

 

 

 

It’s just not worth it.

 

 

 

I’m back on ice water, and I’m a lovely sweet calm person again.

 

 

 

(For what it’s worth.)

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Keurig

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Partner and I have gone through a lot of coffeemakers. We did the espresso pot (which was my baby, born of my North African experience), but you really have to love espresso, and Partner doesn’t. We’ve done Mr. Coffee at least twice, but you know how mediocre Mr. Coffee coffee can be. Also French press (which is a lot of work). Also a percolator, for a brief time.

 

 

Now I think we’ve found something that works for both of us.

 

 

I’ve had the Keurig system in the office for a number of years. My boss loved it, and (though it cost a lot of money) he insisted that we stick with it. The coffee, I admit, is very good. You make it a cup at a time, and you choose what coffee you make, as there are lots of different K-cup pods (depending on what you purchase). And it’s really mostly very good.

 

 

Partner and I had a gift certificate, and made up our minds to take the plunge.

 

 

Well, the home Keurig machine is wonderful.

 

 

First of all, the machine is adorable. It has a dim blue light playing around it when it’s active. It makes a soft crick-crick noise as it’s brewing coffee, like a cricket chirping. It’s sort of adorable.

 

 

Partner likes his coffee a bit milder; I like mine dark. We have already discovered preferred brands: his is Green Mountain Nantucket, and I am gravitating toward Caribou.

 

 

And both of us can have what we like!

 

 

It’s Utopia!

 

 

We can have tea, or cider, or chocolate. I have ordered a box of decaf, as I know that more than two or three cups of strong coffee turn me into a quivering wreck. Partner has ordered some chamomile tea, for sleepless evenings.

 

 

And we can keep exploring. Every coffee and tea manufacturer in the universe – Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, Twinings – is into this. They put out variety packs, so that you can try different blends and focus on your favorites.

 

 

Caveat: it’s kind of expensive. The coffeemaker was $160. A box of 20 K-cups (which equal 20 cups of coffee) is more or less $12.00, depending on how rich your tastes are. (Of course, if you were used to buying your coffee from Starbucks, this is a huge savings.)

 

 

But here’s the thing: both Partner and I are enjoying our morning coffee now, in a way we weren’t before.

 

 

Isn’t that worth something?

 

 

Think about it, you coffee-drinkers.

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My coffee plantation

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Gardening runs in my family.  My father grew industrial-sized corn and cabbages the size of world globes in our backyard.  My mother’s dahlias were enormous.  Both my sisters had incredibly lush gardens, and both had the knack of snipping off a tiny bit of a plant from anywhere – a doctor’s waiting-room, a restaurant, a neighbor’s (private) garden – and taking it home and sticking it in the ground and making it grow.

 

 

I do not generally share the family gift.  I love plants and flowers, but they do not grow gladly for me.  Either they grow rank and wild like disobedient children, or they don’t grow at all.  Partner and I had a plot in the local community garden for a few years, and everyone else’s garden looked like a Brazilian rain forest, and ours looked like a moonscape.  We harvested precious little: a few flowers, some tomatoes, a couple of peppers.  I gave it up after a few years.

 

 

My garden is now a small table next to a south-facing window.  I have some cacti, purchased from Ikea four years ago in a three-pack.  They were little peanutty things when I first brought them home, so I put all three together in a mini-topiary arrangement and told them good luck.  They thrive.  All three have quadrupled in size; they are so healthy, in fact, that I’m afraid they may be mainlining steroids, or Vigoro, or something.  One of them is putting out leaflike projections at the moment; they’re getting bigger and weirder by the day, and I can only hope this is not some peculiar “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” situation.  (I also bought a companion cactus a few months ago in Big Lots; it was cheap and peculiar-looking, lumpy and spiny and shaped like an alien fortress, and it looked as it might fit in with the first three.)

 

 

There is also a Pereskia aculeata, aka “Barbados gooseberry.”  I have written about it before.  It is one of the rank/wild/disobedient plants. It’s pretty much a weed in the Caribbean.  It climbs all over everything, and it has wicked spines (it looks like a regular creeping vine with big shiny green leaves, but it’s a cactus too, believe it or not).  I’ve had it for twenty years; it has changed residences with me twice, and it has grown monstrously and died back, and it is still with me.  I am sure it will outlive me.

 

 

Also, my pet, my prize: a coffee tree, which I bought about ten years ago.  It was just a baby then; it’s almost three feet tall now.  It is a lovely shrub, with nice shiny leaves.  Several years ago it surprised me by blooming (my plants never bloom), with small jasmine-like flowers scattered all over its branches. 

 

 

Then, somehow, it pollinated itself, and I had a crop of coffee berries.

 

 

The berries are lovely too: small, bright red like cherries, and slow to mature.  The tree has repeated its fruit-bearing phase twice, and I just picked a ripe berry tonight.  I tried looking up the method for making actual drinkable coffee out of the berries, but it’s a long process, with fermentation and drying, and I don’t think I’d get much coffee out of the small handful of beans my little tree has produced.

 

 

But I am impressed that it has shown the effort to bear fruit.  Of all the plants I’ve ever owned, it’s the only one that has actually behaved nicely and done what it was supposed to do.

 

 

Does anyone want six or seven coffee beans?

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Java jive

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Frank Bruni had an article in the Times recently about making the perfect cup of coffee.  He went from automatic drip to French press to Chemex (which spat boiling water into his eye) to something called the Hario system, which is basically like performing the Japanese tea ceremony every time you want a cup of coffee.

 

I love a good cup of coffee, especially after a nice dinner. My morning coffee, on the other hand, is liquid caffeine. To quote Bruni, it's “medicine.” I want it quick and easy. I don't care if it's not a gourmet delight.  At seven a.m., I am incapable of enjoying gourmet delights.

 

But it shouldn't taste like battery acid.

 

For a very long time I ground the beans every evening for the next morning's coffee. I hated the process, and finally I just started buying big drums of ground coffee, just like my mother did.

 

But Partner found a little tip online that actually helps.

 

If you use a automatic-drip machine, try adding a tiny pinch of salt to the ground coffee in the basket. No more than an eighth of a teaspoon or so.  It actually works!   It counteracts the bitterness, and it gives a nice mellow flavor.

 

It is the great discovery of our age.

 

If you try it, send me a dollar.

 

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