Over the last two weeks I’ve cut my coffee consumption down to one cup of coffee, enjoyed first thing in the morning. The main reason was the caffeine didn’t affect me most of the time, except when I was already anxious or not feeling great, in which case it made those feelings double in intensity. Or triple. Or quadruple. Really matched 1x to 1 to how many cups I’d have.

I don’t recall when I started drinking coffee. I remember watching my Grandfather drink instant coffee with every meal, and my parents buying the extra huge tins of Folgers, but I never had any. I know in college I preferred soda for caffeine or hot chocolate for something warm. I think after that I’d start grabbing a Dunkin’ Donuts coffee when I had to do a late night or long distance drive. Then I started working and the community coffee pot became a thing, as well as the drudgery of cubicle living, and wanting to stay up late at night to recover any part of the day that I’d burned working, and coffee became a constant thing.

At its worst (probably after Lorelei was born) I think I’d drink 6+ cups a day, starting with breakfast and then going through until 5pm. Or that one time I was walking around New York City and I thought it would be a neat idea to try any new coffee place I walked past, leaving me with the heart rate of a hummingbird by 2 in the afternoon.

Part of the problem is I love the way coffee tastes. Like really, really, deeply enjoy it, both hot and cold, in a way no other drink really comes close to matching. So if you have any suggestions for great decaf, let me know.