Life without coffee

Life Without Coffee

Whomp! Whomp! Whomp! We were in Haiti and the pounding woke us about 4 am. Roasted coffee beans were being crushed in a large wooden mortar made out of part of a tree trunk. The long blunt-ended pestle was dropped onto the beans over and over. Any chance for sleep was over as we listened to the heavy wooden pestle pulverize coffee beans.  Someone made a fire outside the small 4 room house and had hot coffee ready for us. They served it in white enamel cups with brown raw sugar and white bread. That was our breakfast.  I was 54 years old and I did not drink coffee. Until then.

That morning I was with a medical team who were getting ready to see @ 200 patients close to a river south of Leogane. The five of us had spent the night in the village, all in one room, and had done more talking and laughing than sleeping the night before. The morning air was nippy and we were barely awake. It was coffee or nothing. I chose the hot coffee.

All my life I thought coffee smelled good but tasted bad. My mom drank coffee now and then but it was instant ground up stuff she kept in the freezer and it tasted terrible. Everywhere else I tried coffee it was so bitter. I certainly saw no reason to ever pay good money for it! So all through the years I worked nights as a nurse or midwife I drank tea for my caffeine- without any milk or sugar - and herbal teas when I did not want the caffeine.

When I started going to Haiti a couple of times a year, I began drinking coffee for the cultural experience and out of necessity.. Haitian coffee is not bitter. It’s strong and takes a lot of sugar but on a chilly morning when you are half awake it hits the spot. When I returned home I experimented with coffee at work where I could get free coffee in the break room or the hospital cafeteria. I discovered that it was good if I added enough cream and sugar but especially good if it was half coffee and half hot chocolate. That blend gave me a real zing of energy.

I have learned that if you pay a bit more you can have coffee that is not bitter. For years now I have rarely had a morning without coffee. Coffee lovers have rituals around their morning coffee. Sitting and looking out a window, meditation, reading the paper – comfortable activities around the coffee drinking. Steve is a bit of a coffee snob and likes to grind the beans fresh each morning. He frequently will bring me my cup with cream and honey while I am still in bed. Yum. It is a lovely way to start the day.

Morning view in Alabama includes watching the neighbors walk their dogs.

Recently we have made some changes to our coffee routine. It started a couple of months ago when I was starting to have long runs of an irregular heartbeat.  I was having PVCs, premature ventricular contractions.  PVCs are usually benign, but I was having them for hours.  We decided I had to get checked by a cardiologist. 

Waterfront property for sale that I pass on my 4 mile walks.

While we were in Florida, I had an EKG, which showed 4 out of 10 heartbeats were PVC’s.  The cardiologist interpreted a stress test as “not as normal as I would like it to be.”  I was prescribed metoprolol and told to follow up but we left Florida before I could do so.  We are now in Alabama and I am in the middle of  further investigation.  My echocardiogram was normal and a CT angiogram will be done in 2 weeks. 

The good news is that the medicine has helped the PVC’s to go from all day to several minutes once or twice a day and the chest pain is gone. The bad news is that I found caffeine definitely made them worse. For a while, Steve stopped making me coffee. Then we got some decaf, which I have not minded. Two kinds of coffee meant brewing two pots. Sometimes he had decaf also. Sometimes I just had herbal tea.

Then we thought about how much room the coffee maker takes on our small kitchen counter in the RV.  One square foot isn’t much space in your kitchen, but it is a lot in ours.  We decided to banish the coffee maker to a storage bay and now use a “pour-over” coffee brewer.  It takes almost no space and makes better coffee.  The water gets heated to exactly 200 degrees then is slowly poured over the grounds sitting in a stainless-steel filter.  More precise temperature control brews a better cup. 

Pour-over coffee

The best coffee in the world is made in Cabestor, Haiti by Mary Louise. She boils a mixture of dried spices with the coffee.  I’ve examined the small packs these spices come in and I believe they are clove, cinnamon, star anise and cardamom.  But I can’t replicate the flavor and it makes me sad to think I may never have this coffee again.

The town center of Cabestor

As a result of being in one spot for all of January and February we have been able to do some things we did not do last year. We go to a gym 3-4 times a week, sleep even later than ever, and I got out the sewing machine to finish a quilt my mom had started about 6 years ago. I found a quaint quilt shop owned by a woman about my age who lost both her adult children to cancer. She will have it quilted- by long arm machine- by the end of this month.

A quilt started by my mom about 6 years ago and I finally finished.

I have been mostly healthy all my life but the last few months has made me think a lot about the end of my life getting closer than ever. The plans we have made to be with children and grandchildren during this year become even more treasured. The beauty of our surroundings has become more vivid. The love Steve surrounds me with brings more joy and gratitude. I say, "So what" about no more coffee. I have “miles to go before I sleep”.

Expensive iced coffee at a coffee shop in Port-au-Prince

One of my last cups of coffee at a hotel in Haiti near the airport.

Edited by Steve