‘Bean’ there, done that
The morning ritual had been the same for years: up at 7 and then walk the dog. Put on the coffee and while it’s brewing, finish the remainder of my morning thousand steps, do my stretches, pour the coffee and add the cream, hack off a square of extra-dark chocolate and head upstairs to my office.
Somewhere around mid-July, the coffee stopped.
First there was the stomachache, and then the heartburn that stretched into the afternoon. I noticed I was chewing through a bottle of TUMS every couple of weeks. I decided it was the coffee, even though it was only that morning cup, very light, that I rarely finished. I unplugged the coffee maker and pushed in into a corner of the counter.
Yes, there was withdrawal, but not physical. I didn’t have the headaches you hear about. I missed the process, the routine that gave structure to my mornings. I thought I could replace the coffee, first with tea and then with a plain mug of water that I could enjoy with the chocolate. But it wasn’t the same.
A long time ago, the talk show host David Letterman had to quit coffee after he had bypass surgery. He talked about trying to switch to decaf and made a face that told us he couldn’t abide that.
My problem was not the caffeine, but the acid. A week into the coffee ban, my stomach felt better. But that week was difficult. There were cravings – not for the drink but for the feel of the warm cup in my hand, the reassurance of having the mug to the right of my mouse as I checked email. Even my morning WORDLE game in the New York Times felt empty without the coffee. (At some point I broke my winning streak of 37 games, and I blame the coffee ban.)
“Get different coffee,” my friend said. I’d been drinking strong Cuban coffee for years, but I doused it with half and half, and wouldn’t that cut the acid?
Well, there’s a whole world of other coffee out there, stuff you won’t find at the grocery store. Search “low-acid coffee” and you land in the cool mountains of Nicaragua and Costa Rica. I ordered a few different kinds and waited.
A week later it all arrived. But by now I was beyond the craving. I’d kicked the habit, had found a way to do my mornings without the mug of java, and I was feeling better.
Smokers will tell you that years after they’ve quit the habit, the smell of a freshly-lit cigarette still entices. I picked up the bag of the coffee and breathed it in. It was pulling me back in. This week, I gave it a try.
In the two months since I’d stopped, the coffee maker had gone stale. Was that mold I smelled? I scrubbed it down and brewed some vinegar water, twice.
Then I made the new Costa Rican blend. The aroma filled the kitchen once again. I poured. Added the cream. Hacked off a block of chocolate and headed up to my office. The routine was in my muscle memory: take a bite and then a sip. Check email. Repeat.
For a moment it was as if I’d never stopped. The coffee melted the chocolate in my mouth. I waited for the heartburn. So far it has not crept back up, but we’ll see how it goes. If I have to quit again, I know how to do it.
But if I don’t, I know the ritual.