Coffee
12/09/24 23:14
I remember the first time I drank a whole cup of coffee. I was hunting with my father and we stopped for lunch. We had packed sandwiches and he had a thermos of coffee. Often when we hunted, I would dip water from a stream. In those days the streams in the high country weren’t infected with Giardia an were safe to drink. But it was cold on that particular day and the little streams where we were following deer were frozen. There was a dusting of snow, but not enough to melt for drinking. My father offered me a cup of coffee and I took it and drank it with my lunch. I didn’t much care for the flavor, but it was warm and it made me feel grown up to be included in my father’s practices. After that time, I drank coffee, but only when I was on an excursion with my father.
When I went to college, I had some habits that I needed to change. I had been reading myself to sleep for years and now that i had a lot more reading to do, I needed to stay awake and alert and be able to retain what I was reading. The cafeteria at the college had unlimited beverages, so I got in the habit of having hot chocolate with my breakfast. That, however, seemed to make me sleepy. So I switched to coffee for breakfast and within a short time I was drinking coffee with most of my meals.
After college and graduate school, I began to develop a more mature taste for coffee. I discovered a roaster in a city we visited frequently that sold beans that had not been ground. I purchased a small grinder and started grinding my own coffee. I experimented with different blends and roasts and found several that I liked.
In North Dakota we discovered that people didn’t ask if you wanted coffee. They simply served you coffee. It was during those years that my wife started drinking coffee, at first to be polite to the people we visited, later because she developed a taste for coffee. North Dakotans drink a lot of coffee, but they don’t make their coffee very strong. At home, I brewed a stronger cup.
When we moved to Idaho, I lived in a city where there were several roasters and several espresso cafes. I developed a taste for espresso and eventually purchased my own espresso machine and a more capable grinder. When we moved to South Dakota I commented to some of our friends that the best cup of espresso available in Rapid City was in my kitchen.
Through our relationship with our sister church in Costa Rica, I learned the importance of organic coffee, shade grown coffee, and fairly traded coffee. I discovered that certified organic is a designation that costs the grower a lot of money and is beyond the reach of small farmers. They might follow organic practices, but they cannot afford to pay for the certification. A similar thing functions with fair trade. The costs of fair trade certification are born by the farmers and are substantial. Small farmers can earn more by forgoing the certification and finding customers who will purchase directly from them, thus the coffee has been fairly traded, but lacks the certification.
Shade grown coffee is important for a couple of reasons. First, coffee production and the expansion of the coffee industry is the sixth leading cause of deforestation in the world. Trees are cut down to grow coffee. As global warming continues to worsen, coffee is grown at higher and higher elevations, causing more trees to be cut down. Shade grown coffee comes from plant varieties that can grow beneath the forest canopy. It can also be grown beneath food crops like plantains. I used to come home from visits to Costa Rica with 40 pounds of coffee (the most allowed without requiring an import license). I brought roasted coffee, which is different from importing raw coffee beans in terms of import regulations. I purchased the coffee from a cooperative that produced shade grown organic coffee and offered it for sale directly to us.
Then, when I reached my sixties, I developed a bit of an irregular hearth rhythm. It wasn’t serious, some PVCs and PACs, but it was enough to get my doctor to run a bunch of cardiac tests and to put me on a medicine that regulates heart rhythm. I also learned that caffeine can be a trigger for atrial fibrillation. I gave up caffeine and that meant giving up coffee. I simply stopped drinking it. I drank herbal and decaffeinated teas. I still occasionally made tea lattes and used my espresso machine to steam milk, but it was getting less and less use and I was purchasing less and less coffee. Then Susan developed a heart problem and also gave up caffeine. The espresso machine went into storage for nearly four years.
These days I drink chai, which has caffeine almost every day, but limit myself to a single cup. And I have decaffeinated coffee from time to time. The espresso machine is back on the kitchen counter, but is used mostly when we have guests. I keep a small supply of good coffee available to serve guests along with some decaffeinated beans.
Along the way, I experimented with some non-coffee beverages, some of which claimed to be caffeine substitutes. A main ingredient in many of them is chicory which is an acquired taste. I have learned to drink it but don’t relish it the way I like the taste of coffee.
A company named Atomo, in Seattle, is trying to upend the coffee business with a bean-free beverage that has caffeine. There are now more than 70 coffee shops that offer their beverage made of date seeds, ramón seeds, sunflower seed extract, fructose, pea protein, millet, lemon, guava, fenugreek seeds, caffeine and baking soda. It is interesting to note that the caffeine that they add to the mix comes from the process of decaffeinating green matcha tea. I haven’t tasted their product, but I can’t say that the recipe leaves me wanting to try it.
I’ve made a lot of changes in my life. I’ve gone from not drinking coffee to being a bit of a coffee snob to not drinking it to occasionally having a cup of decaf. Who knows what beverages I’ll be drinking a decade from now? I’m not planning to keep Atomo on hand at my house yet, but I’ll try to keep an open mind.
When I went to college, I had some habits that I needed to change. I had been reading myself to sleep for years and now that i had a lot more reading to do, I needed to stay awake and alert and be able to retain what I was reading. The cafeteria at the college had unlimited beverages, so I got in the habit of having hot chocolate with my breakfast. That, however, seemed to make me sleepy. So I switched to coffee for breakfast and within a short time I was drinking coffee with most of my meals.
After college and graduate school, I began to develop a more mature taste for coffee. I discovered a roaster in a city we visited frequently that sold beans that had not been ground. I purchased a small grinder and started grinding my own coffee. I experimented with different blends and roasts and found several that I liked.
In North Dakota we discovered that people didn’t ask if you wanted coffee. They simply served you coffee. It was during those years that my wife started drinking coffee, at first to be polite to the people we visited, later because she developed a taste for coffee. North Dakotans drink a lot of coffee, but they don’t make their coffee very strong. At home, I brewed a stronger cup.
When we moved to Idaho, I lived in a city where there were several roasters and several espresso cafes. I developed a taste for espresso and eventually purchased my own espresso machine and a more capable grinder. When we moved to South Dakota I commented to some of our friends that the best cup of espresso available in Rapid City was in my kitchen.
Through our relationship with our sister church in Costa Rica, I learned the importance of organic coffee, shade grown coffee, and fairly traded coffee. I discovered that certified organic is a designation that costs the grower a lot of money and is beyond the reach of small farmers. They might follow organic practices, but they cannot afford to pay for the certification. A similar thing functions with fair trade. The costs of fair trade certification are born by the farmers and are substantial. Small farmers can earn more by forgoing the certification and finding customers who will purchase directly from them, thus the coffee has been fairly traded, but lacks the certification.
Shade grown coffee is important for a couple of reasons. First, coffee production and the expansion of the coffee industry is the sixth leading cause of deforestation in the world. Trees are cut down to grow coffee. As global warming continues to worsen, coffee is grown at higher and higher elevations, causing more trees to be cut down. Shade grown coffee comes from plant varieties that can grow beneath the forest canopy. It can also be grown beneath food crops like plantains. I used to come home from visits to Costa Rica with 40 pounds of coffee (the most allowed without requiring an import license). I brought roasted coffee, which is different from importing raw coffee beans in terms of import regulations. I purchased the coffee from a cooperative that produced shade grown organic coffee and offered it for sale directly to us.
Then, when I reached my sixties, I developed a bit of an irregular hearth rhythm. It wasn’t serious, some PVCs and PACs, but it was enough to get my doctor to run a bunch of cardiac tests and to put me on a medicine that regulates heart rhythm. I also learned that caffeine can be a trigger for atrial fibrillation. I gave up caffeine and that meant giving up coffee. I simply stopped drinking it. I drank herbal and decaffeinated teas. I still occasionally made tea lattes and used my espresso machine to steam milk, but it was getting less and less use and I was purchasing less and less coffee. Then Susan developed a heart problem and also gave up caffeine. The espresso machine went into storage for nearly four years.
These days I drink chai, which has caffeine almost every day, but limit myself to a single cup. And I have decaffeinated coffee from time to time. The espresso machine is back on the kitchen counter, but is used mostly when we have guests. I keep a small supply of good coffee available to serve guests along with some decaffeinated beans.
Along the way, I experimented with some non-coffee beverages, some of which claimed to be caffeine substitutes. A main ingredient in many of them is chicory which is an acquired taste. I have learned to drink it but don’t relish it the way I like the taste of coffee.
A company named Atomo, in Seattle, is trying to upend the coffee business with a bean-free beverage that has caffeine. There are now more than 70 coffee shops that offer their beverage made of date seeds, ramón seeds, sunflower seed extract, fructose, pea protein, millet, lemon, guava, fenugreek seeds, caffeine and baking soda. It is interesting to note that the caffeine that they add to the mix comes from the process of decaffeinating green matcha tea. I haven’t tasted their product, but I can’t say that the recipe leaves me wanting to try it.
I’ve made a lot of changes in my life. I’ve gone from not drinking coffee to being a bit of a coffee snob to not drinking it to occasionally having a cup of decaf. Who knows what beverages I’ll be drinking a decade from now? I’m not planning to keep Atomo on hand at my house yet, but I’ll try to keep an open mind.