Is there anything more beautiful than a perfectly brewed cup of coffee? Answers in the comments, please. Photo: LightFieldStudios.
Ever since I had my first cup of instant at the ripe old age of 14 I’ve loved coffee.
Not in the way that some people love coffee – only if it comes in vanilla mocha frappuccino form, or, down the other end of the spectrum, exclusively cold-pressed single origin beans passed through the digestive tracts of civets.
I’ve loved it with an unconditional love. Instant with milk and sugar for comfort, a long black to kick-start a long day, the delightful froth of a cappuccino with friends, an iced coffee on a summer’s day.
In all its forms, coffee is delicious. Coffee brings rhythm to the day – the morning cuppa at home, the mid-morning coffee run with colleagues, the slightly more desperate mid-afternoon coffee run, a coffee over lunch with a friend.
At my peak coffee consumption, juggling studies in Wollongong and work that took me as far south as Eden, I drank between three and five long blacks a day.
In more relaxed seasons of life it’s been an instant before work and then maybe a small cappuccino as an afternoon treat.
It’s my one real vice. I don’t smoke; drinking I can take or leave.
But coffee has always been there, and now it’s not.
Earlier this year I discovered, with a deep sense of betrayal, that coffee is one of my primary migraine triggers.
I thought our relationship could withstand anything, even inflation, but spending two to five days a month lying in a dark room crying is a big ask, even from such a devoted friend.
I kicked the habit months ago, with all the expected withdrawal symptoms.
Fatigue, headaches, you name it. It sucked.
I emerged out the other side largely migraine-free and expected to skip merrily into my post-coffee life.
Like an addict yearning for the glory days, however, with the rose-tinted glow of nostalgia colouring my memories, I can’t help but feel something magical has gone out of life.
Decaf gives me migraines.
I’ve tried matcha lattes but sadly I am not young and cool enough to appreciate them.
I’ve tried herbal teas. I’ve tried making my own chai on the stove.
I’ve tried weird concoctions made of dandelion root that are meant to mimic my beloved morning roast.
None of them infuse my day with joyful anticipation the way coffee did.
They’re fine. I’d rather have a cuppa than not. But they aren’t the same.
So I’m reaching out – surely someone out there has a good replacement beverage? Something delicious, something endlessly versatile, something both ubiquitous and precious.
Any readers out there with a suggestion that might bring some of the light back into my life, please share them in the comments.
I’ll try anything – whether it’s been inside a civet or not.
