Something New Brewing In The Coffee Pot?

by Kevin Burton

   Johann Sebastian Bach wrote an ode to coffee, which means I wouldn’t have to. His would surely suffice.

   By all rights though, I should.

   Most of us wanted to sample coffee as young teens, exploring the world of grownups. That desire was heightened by the fact that adults tried to keep it from us.

   My favorite college professor, Richard Wright, had an odd way of walking and gesturing and he was seldom seen without a mug of coffee.

   Fast forward a few years and now, despite everything I promised myself, I’m a teacher, giving English as a Second language Classes in Mexico. My school, Interlingua, had free cookies and coffee for students and teachers alike.

   In college I had taken exactly two hours of what could be considered teaching method. My training for the classroom was a bit thin. So I’m brushing up on the finer points of English in the afternoon, teaching it at night.

   My teaching persona was one part David Letterman, two parts Richard Wright, with coffee as a prop.

   I never won teacher of the month, but I got some votes, and I owe them all to the java.

   This comes up now because I am toying with the idea of switching to decaf coffee.  I sort of started last week, experimenting with my second cup in the morning being decaf.

   I’m sure this has been a suggestion more than once, muttered just out of earshot. “Oh for God’s sake Burton, switch to decaf!”

   Coffee has been a part of my morning routine for a long time, almost always the fully-loaded variety. But who wants to be fully awake in post-national America? Perhaps decaf could be a way to hit the snooze button.

   Prof. Wright would have scoffed at the idea of decaf. I never considered it really. It’s just that I bought my wife Jeannette all this decaf coffee.  It’s easier on her stomach.

   She drinks it but not very often. So I have all this decaf around and don’t want it to go to waste.

   Also, my sleep patterns aren’t the best. I thought decaf might help.  I may need to go totally decaf for a while to really see though. At the very least this tell me how many cups I am drinking every day. To this point, I haven’t bothered to count.

   Bach wrote “Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht,” (Be still, stop chattering), commonly known as the Coffee Cantata.

   “He composed it probably between 1732 and 1735,” according to Wikipedia. “Although classified as a cantata, it is essentially a miniature comic opera. In a satirical commentary, the cantata amusingly tells of an addiction to (or rather dependence on) coffee.”

   I watched some people playing out the Coffee Cantata on You Tube, but I don’t speak German, so the humor escaped me. The music is classical of course, which could be considered the decaf end of my music collection.

   How annoying is it when you have drunk all the regular coiffe in your hotel room, return to that plastic tray the tiny coffee pot sits on  and all the rest is decaf?  Who wants that stuff anyway?

   Well now, maybe I do.

   I have not one but two coffee mugs that I use interchangeably at home. One is part of a set we got as a wedding present from my Friend Linda in England. The other is a souvenir from Piggly Wiggly, the Southern US grocery store chain.  That cartoon pig is always smiling and so am I, with my morning jolt.

   So-called decaffeinated coffee isn’t quite. You knew that, right?

   “Regular coffee has about 95 mg of caffeine. Decaf coffee has 2 mg, which is about 97 percent less caffeine. Decaf coffee tastes like regular coffee, but it has a lower risk of the caffeine-related side effects,” according to goodrx.com.

   There is a downside to decaf however, as I learned from several websites.

   “The process used to reduce the caffeine content in coffee beans removes some antioxidants in regular coffee beans, possibly leading to decreased antioxidant benefits over time,” writes Cuisine Review. “Decaffeinated beans may increase cholesterol in some populations when consumed regularly over long periods.”

   “To strip caffeine from coffee beans, many companies use methylene chloride, a harsh chemical found in paint stripper,” writes the website brightside.me. “When it gets into your body, methylene chloride can cause harm to your heart and liver, and even affect your reproductive health.”

   “According to research findings, consuming decaf coffee may increase the risk of rheumatoid arthritis,” wrote Jillian Kubala, a registered dietician based in Westhampton, New York.

   All these studies. It’s too much to take in sometimes. Maybe I will wake up, smell the coffee, but drink the orange juice.