Caffeine Brain

I don’t drink coffee. I never have. (Call me different and you’ll be right at least nine times out of ten.) In my whole life, I’ve consumed maybe two cups worth. That required multiple attempts — usually friends forcing it on me because “you’ll like this [flavor|variety|brand|style], I promise!”

They’ve all struck out. I just don’t care for the stuff, not even iced, not even extremely flavored and tarted up. In contrast, I’ve always liked iced tea, and therein lies my tale for the day. Because tea has plenty of caffeine, too.

And it gave me a double lesson about [1] why people drink coffee (one word: caffeine) and [B] the downside of drinking coffee (one word: caffeine).

One might think, since I won’t touch coffee but like tea, that I was more familiar with the effects (good and bad) of caffeine. But while I do love (iced) tea, I don’t have it often — usually only restaurants as a meal beverage when I want something non-alcoholic (infrequent, but it happens).

For years, I made and iced tea at home, either brewing it or — when I had a backyard or private porch — making sun tea. (Which, yum, is delicious!) But that hung up on various factors: non-ideal tap water, forgetting or not having time to make it, even experiencing serious bodily harm in the making.

That did happen. One of those times I ate a large stupid pill. In my defense, I did in the safety of my kitchen sink multiple times test pouring boiling water into the heavy glass container I used for brewing. But, still, what was I thinking? Regular glass and boiling water? A big stupid pill on that one.

My permanent reminder that smart and wise are not the same.

The last time it was on the kitchen counter, and I was leaning on the counter with my hand just in front of the glass container. After I poured in the boiling water, I heard a loud crack, and the container separated into two neat pieces. Which put a quart of very hot water into free motion, about half of which met the dam of my left hand.

Instantly removed a good thick chunk of skin off the back of my hand. Shock and awe(some pain)!

I gritted my teeth, balled my fist, and stuck it under the kitchen tap running full blast cold. Watched chunks of my skin peel away. Then came the hard part: pouring hydrogen peroxide on what was now a large wound. Twice for good measure.

Not good for tea brewing!

Then I spent the night in one of my recliner chairs so I wouldn’t roll around in bed and could stick my arm out where nothing would touch my hand.

First thing next morning, I went to (what we now call) Urgent Care. Nurse’s comment (about my self-care measures) was, “That’s going to leave a scar!” She was right. Almost thirty years later, and there it still is.

Doctor’s comment made me feel better: “If you hadn’t done that, I’d have a surgeon in here right now discussing a skin graft.” He was right, too (I assume). I left with a jar of sulfur ointment and instructions to keep the wound dry (except for the ointment — which was white but turned a beautiful gold upon application).

So, I don’t brew tea for icing much anymore. Not due to any phobia — I could certainly find an appropriate brewing vessel — so much as due to it being a pain in the ass. I’m long over the pain in my hand.

But I’ve always had mixed feelings about buying bottled tea. At least as a regular thing. Buying soda was bad enough, but buying bottled tea seemed a step over the line. Part of the logic being that tea is so easily made at home. Soda, not so much (though apparently there are kits now).

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For most of my so-called adult life, the overwhelming percentage of my liquid intake was diet soda. Various other (cold or room temp) beverages comprised the rest, craft beers, iced tea or water, the rare cup of hot tea, or the even rarer cup of hot cider on a really cold day.

Part of the deal is that I’ve never been much for hot beverages — that’s part of the problem with coffee. It’s why I don’t often drink hot tea even though I’m okay with the flavor. And why, despite loving chocolate, I won’t touch it as a hot beverage. Chocolate should only melt in my mouth, not in my hands or mug!

And I’ve never liked the way sugary soda coats my teeth, so I’ve been on diet soda since high school. My flavored carbonated water. And at least soda seems to have enough stuff in it that buying it wasn’t too onerous.

My former DMD stash!

But, getting back on topic, as far as caffeine goes, most sodas don’t have much of it. Even the ones usually noted for it — Dr. Pepper and Mountain Dew — only have about one-quarter the caffeine that a cup of coffee does.

Tea, by the way, depending on the variety, can be, and often is, brewed to have much more caffeine than coffee typically has (but coffee can be made very strong, too). The two are definitely on the same level.

My progression — and there has been a definite evolution — has been from diet colas starting back in high school (including Tab! remember Tab?) to Diet Dr. Pepper somewhere after college to Diet Mountain Dew the last two decades or so.

None of which offered enough caffeine for me to really notice. Drank them from morning to night, never had trouble sleeping. Usually had a bottle near to hand. Never noticed any particular ‘buzz’ or ‘rush’ from them. They were just my liquid intake. Gotta stay hydrated!

When I was in grade school, my parents weren’t big on soda, so I drank water, milk, or iced tea (made from powder). Back then I put in as much sugar as the tea would hold, but switched to unsweetened in high school when I started drinking diet soda.

In a perfect world: water, sun tea, craft beers, the occasional mixed drink.

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Last year, triggered by my doctor’s dim view of my hydration plan, I decided it was time to finally quit diet sodas. For one thing, the price has been creeping up (especially since the supply chain issues due to COVID-19 and global warming).

More importantly, I’ve been worrying about the aspartame — some go so far as to consider it a neurotoxin, and I know people who react badly to it. My doctor pointed out that the salts interfere with hydration, so I kicked the soda habit.

Now I’m buying bottled spring water (because my tap water isn’t great), and that’s okay. If I’m paying for water, might as well buy it undisguised. I’m certainly happy to no longer buy soda — the price has gotten outrageous lately. (But I’m still paying extra for hydration.)

Which at long last brings me to the point of this story.

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For a party I had last November, I bought some bottled tea in case any of my guests wanted a caffeine jolt for the drive home. My coffee experience is so limited that I wouldn’t know what kind of bottled coffee drinks to buy, and which if not consumed by my guests would sit in my fridge forever unloved.

For the software project I was working on at the time, I thought I’d drink some iced tea rather than my these-days usual slightly MiO-flavored lemonade. Thought a little jolt of caffeine couldn’t hurt.

Didn’t hurt! Not at first, anyway.

My tasty caffeine gateway.

Since I’d bought a twelve-pack of half-liter bottles and none of my guests drank any, I had plenty left. Which led to drinking four to six bottles a day.

And I think for the first time (at least in recent memory) I realized why people go on and on about needing coffee. Many people love coffee and pursue “the good stuff” and have discriminating tastes. but many also need that first morning coffee to get their engine started, and some crave it all day, not as a tasty hydration beverage, but as a stimulant.

I never really got that before, not fully. Now I do.

The alertness and improved focus.

The nice blowing out of morning cobwebs.

And the caffeine addiction and withdrawal.

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I knew about that last part from others, but experiencing it personally came as a bit of a shock. The withdrawal was as bad as a hangover. In both those cases my experience has been that conventional pain relievers have little or no effect.

So, no more using iced tea for long code-writing sessions! Even in my soda days, I wasn’t using caffeine at this level. Diet Dr. Pepper has more than most colas, and Diet Mountain Dew has more than Pepper, but as I mentioned above, they don’t compare at all to a cup of coffee.

Half-liter bottles of brewed tea, however… rather do.

An army of dead soldiers. (Yeah, bought more than one 12-pack.)

I’ve learned my lesson: moderation. (Moderation in all things, including moderation!)

So, now I allow myself just one half-liter bottle per day, usually in the morning, but no later than mid-afternoon. (I also had some restless nights during my caffeine addiction.) I do like the blowing out the cobwebs part as well as the improved focus.

And now I see — finally — why people have been into caffeine all this time.

Lately, I’ve been having two bottles, and I think I need to cut that out before it becomes three!

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Back in the day, my then BFF and I spent some long sessions messing around with recording music. For a while we even had a very small very informal “business” doing recording for wannabe songwriters. We used to use a coffeemaker to brew multiple pitchers of that Good Earth house tea you could buy.

Fond memories!

It was a strong black tea base with a veritable garden of herbs added that made it taste sweet and cinnamon-y. Best hot tea I’ve ever had. Kind of ruined me for regular hot teas. Awesome iced, too.

But we were young and vital and so full of energy then that I don’t think we noticed all that much buzz from the tea we drank. Probably did help those long night sessions, but I’ve always been capable of rising to the occasion when required. Even now, deep in a project, I’ll pull an all-nighter sometimes. (Wrecks me more these days than it used to.)

I think that’s why I never found cocaine, or any stimulants, appealing. Coke is expensive, the high — such as it is — is short-lived (and dangerously addictive), and I can get there on my own, so I never saw the point. Half of coke’s effect is an ego boost, and, trust me, that’s the last thing I need.

In any event, I don’t recall any withdrawal from that Good Earth tea. I wouldn’t mind brewing some up if it’s still around (and the recipe hasn’t changed).

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The No-Coffee condition of my life is funny. Some of it is, at this point, created identity, but I genuinely don’t like the stuff. In part because I don’t like hot beverages, but more because it tastes like dirty brown water to me. Even the supposedly good stuff, and that I don’t like iced coffee is pretty affirmative.

Yet I love coffee-flavored ice cream (a favorite, in fact), coffee candy, and even coffee-infused beer, so it’s a weirdness on a weirdness (love the smell, too).

It certainly makes one different. Coffee is so universal. When I was a field tech (1980-84), I must have turned down the offer of a cup of coffee in different offices nearly a dozen times each day. I never saw people actually hanging out at the water cooler, but often saw them idling in the coffee room. Coffee is community. One I’m not part of.

This might come from being a bit on the spectrum, but I still haven’t learned to just say, “No thank you.” Something in me wants to explain that I don’t drink coffee, sometimes in some detail. Which I can tell people take as a value judgement. It isn’t, but I can see how it can be taken that way.

I need to learn to just smile and say, “No thank you.”

Life is a process.

Stay alert, my friends! Go forth and spread beauty and light.

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