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*To be read in the voice of Special Agent Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks
It’s the delicious dark elixir that pulls me out of my slumber in the morning, taking me from bleary-eyed to somewhat alert — coffee.
As I was making the first of my two daily cups of coffee the other day, I got to thinking how my habits around the hot, caffeinated drink have changed over the years.
I started drinking coffee in my teens (a habit my kids thankfully haven’t adopted… yet), and by the time I started university in the mid-1990s (ugh) I was typically knocking back half a pot a day, waking up to mediocre but serviceable joe thanks to a coffee maker equipped with a pre-set timer.
Things changed about seven years ago when I moved in with my partner, who introduced me to the Aeropress, a portable, cylindrical little device that eschews quantity for quality. It’s a plunger-type system whereby you pour a scoop of coffee grounds into the chamber, top it with boiling (or almost-boiling) water, snap on the lid with a disc-shaped paper filter, and plunge the liquid through said filter into your mug.
No, my coffee mug isn’t wearing a top hat — that’s my trusty Aeropress. (Ben Sigurdson / Free Press)
I also upped my bean game slightly from the pre-ground commercial stuff to organic, fair trade espresso beans via Salt Spring Coffee, ground as needed in a burr mill.
I’m still as desperate as ever for the caffeine hit in the morning, and the new arrangement is a bit pricier and more time-consuming than the old one, but if it means drinking something that tastes better, I’ll take it.
(I often suggest folks consider the same mindset with their wine-drinking habits — spend a bit more and drink a bit less of a product that was made with care, and which will taste infinitely better than, say, a bag-in-a-box wine whose contents were assembled in Canada from bulk domestic and international juice. But I digress.)
My coffee routine rarely changes — one cup at home while doing my Wordle, firing up the laptop and opening the dreaded inbox, and the second slugged back in the car on the way to the office (typically while listening to The Rest is History podcast).
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Pre-pandemic, I’d sometimes skip making a second cup at home and instead treat myself to a store-bought java on the way to work. But since the pandemic (and maybe because of the rising cost of… well, everything), I’ve probably only done so about five times.
Also… I just like my little morning ritual.
Coffee or otherwise, what’s your morning routine that gets you going?
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