To Coffee or Not To Coffee??

That is the question...


I have been sick since Friday.  Awful.  Even today, I had half a voice all day.  It really stinks.

HOWEVER:  Being sick has it's perks.  I'm off coffee (no pun intended....OK, it was intended).  

I remember I never really liked coffee all that much (at least in highschool I didn't...I would try to have some on the weekend with my parents, but it never really phased me).  But my senior year of highschool, a friend came over one night and be brought me a coffee:  A small french vanilla iced coffee "Extra/Extra" from Dunkin Donuts.  That year, I started drinking more coffee.  It was always the same - French Vanilla Iced Coffee, Extra Cream, Extra Sugar.  (On a side note, maybe that's why I started gaining weight???).  From then on, I started shaping my coffee intake and what I actually liked.  

I eventually "grew out" of my Extra/Extra phase and graduated to just cream and sugar.  And then Milk and Sugar.  And then Skim Milk and Sugar.  And then Skim Milk and Splenda.  And then, because I hate skim milk so much, I settled on Milk and Splenda.

I have had a coffee just about every morning since College (a coffee usually being a medium either iced or hot....And usually only 1 per day).  I feel like I could have joined Coffee Drinkers Anonymous, but I would have had to bring my dad with me, as he drinks Pots per day (not just cups per day).  I drank so much iced coffee in college that I was able to collect 2 sets (not just 1 set) of the Red Sox 2004 World Champion Cups...I had extra cups that didn't make a complete set of the 3 cups....Please don't think that I only drank 6 iced coffees :o)

In any case, I got to the point where if I didn't have a cup of coffee, I would get a raging headache. I've always considered going off coffee, but the couple of times that I did it, I got such a headache, that I couldn't bear the pain and gave back in to the coffee.

Well, as I said, I've been sick all week this week.  Huge cold, potential sinus infection (that seemed to go away relatively quickly) and a cough.  In any case, while I was sick, I had absolutely no desire whatsoever to drink coffee (let alone make a pot of coffee).  Instead, I moved over to tea....I figured the absence of milk and the super hotness of the tea would be good in clearing my head.  The only kind of tea I had in the house (besides flavored tea, which I don't like, so I don't know why I have them) is decaf tea.  So I basically went cold turkey.  If I did have a reaction to not having the coffee, the pressure in my head from being sick seemed to outweigh the pain in my head from lack of coffee.

Go ahead, make fun of my Hogwarts Mug.  I know you're just jealous!!

Impressed?  I am.

So, after going about 10 years with a cup of coffee a day, I managed to go cold turkey onto decaf tea (I realize there is some caffeine in "decaf tea," but I know it's a lot less than in a regular coffee - see below).  I have to say, I like drinking tea.  It reminds me of the days when I was young and I would sit at the kitchen table and have tea with my mom, sister, Nonni, and Auntie Ginny.  I remember how my aunt always liked her tea weak, and I used to load mine up with sugar and milk.  I even had a tea party as a birthday party one year!!!  Every time I pour a cup of tea, I let it steep, and then use the paper wrapper to squeeze the excess water out of the bag.  And I think back on my childhood.  Kind of funny that a simple cup of tea will do that....It's probably healthier, too!  :o)


At the end of the day, the answer would be, Not To Coffee!!


A little comparison (from http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/caffeine/AN01211):

Coffee
Type of coffee	Size*	Caffeine**
Espresso, restaurant-style	1 oz. (30 mL)	40-75 mg
Espresso, restaurant-style, decaffeinated	1 oz. (30 mL)	0-15 mg
Generic brewed	8 oz. (240 mL)	95-200 mg
Generic brewed, decaffeinated	8 oz. (240 mL)	2-12 mg
Generic instant	8 oz. (240 mL)	27-173 mg
Generic instant, decaffeinated	8 oz. (240 mL)	2-12 mg
McDonald's brewed	16 oz. (480 mL)	100 mg
McDonald's Mocha Frappe	16 oz. (480 mL)	125 mg
Starbucks Latte	16 oz. (480 mL)	150 mg
Starbucks Pike Place brewed	16 oz. (480 mL)	330 mg
Starbucks Pike Place brewed, decaffeinated	16 oz. (480 mL)	25 mg
Tea
Type of tea	Size*	Caffeine**
Brewed tea
Black tea	8 oz. (240 mL)	14-61 mg
Black tea, decaffeinated	8 oz. (240 mL)	0-12 mg
Green tea	8 oz. (240 mL)	24-40 mg
Iced tea
AriZona Iced Tea, lemon-flavored	8 oz. (240 mL)	11 mg
Generic instant, unsweetened	8 oz. (240 mL)	26 mg
Lipton Brisk Lemon Iced Tea	8 oz. (240 mL)	5-7 mg