hugga mugga

I loves me my coffee. In university I was a baker and night manager at a local coffee place where I not only learned the fine art of perfect scones and cheesecake baking, but I got hooked on fresh delicious coffee. This place had it's own roaster and brought in beans from around the world - and I had access to the best, delicious coffee in town. From all this, I have discovered my own favourite coffee types and roasts (med roast sumatra mandeling and french roast everything else). I've decided that nothing tastes better than a nice single americano with a bit of heavy cream...a good strong cuppa quality joe doesn't need sugar.

my fave mug made by my lovely friend Toni

Last year, before I was diagnosed with the big C and was going through a lot of tests, I was encouraged by my doc to cut back from my grad study levels of caffeination (upwards of 10 cups a day...my bad) and reduce it down as low as I could. Not only does caffeination cause mammograms to hurt more, but it was just too damn much caffeine. It was a rather hellish few weeks cutting out caffeine and now, other than the odd cup of green tea I do my best to stay decaffeinated. I just don't need it anymore. I find it funny I used to be able to drink an espresso and go to bed and sleep like a rock because now more than a cup of it actually makes me jittery and high strung. Since I started taking tamoxifen post surgery I can't sleep well anyways- I don't need caffeine helping me stay up.

With my love of good coffee, despite my chemo demented taste buds, I set out on a quest for good decaf. This was a harder thing than I first thought. Not only did it have to be swiss water decaf to ensure I wasn't sucking up any chemicals, but I've gotta say - there is a lot of sh*tty decaf out there. Adding insult to injury, if you go out for dinner, often the decaf pot has been brewed and sat there all day until you arrived or they just dump a packet of stale instant into some hot water for you.
Oh the humanity.
Luckily for me there is a gem of a local place in my home town that roasts and sells it's own coffees, and they have 10 (yup 10! Squee!) kinds of decaf. They've been here over 20 years and have a WALL of teas of every variety too (including decaf) along with a bunch of scrummy syrups. It is my new mecca. My last trip there this week has led me to a lovely french roasted decaf (which I am sipping happily right now) as well as an island strawberry green tea, which I sipped on my walk in the sunshine yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed. Now that my taste buds have returned, and I drink coffee for the taste of it, I have declared that they will no longer be subjected to crappy coffee!

It's the little things. It really is.