This morning, I purchased a cup of coffee, a Café au lait to be specific. What makes buying a cup of coffee noteworthy is that it’s the first cup of coffee that I have purchased, or even consumed for that matter, in about 3 years. I don’t normally drink coffee for reasons that date back to my Junior year of high school.
I found high school exceedingly easy and, as a result, I was almost constantly bored. In spite of the fact that I usually did my homework during other classes so as to avoid doing it at home, I rarely slept sufficiently–a habit that I’ve carried with me since. The not sleeping meant I drank coffee in the mornings, rather a decent amount. The boredom, and who I am, led to experiments of all sorts. Eventually, the logical happened, I combined my coffee with my experimenting. I usually made coffee with our Moka Express–a phenomenal device for making good coffee by the way–so that served as the platform for my experimentation. Mokas produce rather tasty and very potent coffee. My first experiment involved the production of three Mokas worth of coffee, which were then boiled down to the volume of a single mug; the boiling down concentrated the caffeine but absolutely ruined the flavor. Experiment one was a resounding success; I was alert, wired and full of energy all day, though I did crash at the end of the day and become quite exhausted. At the time, I had a bit of a penchant for consuming cake frosting (if only I still had my teenage metabolism) and I suspect the container I ate that day helped maintain blood-sugar levels against the energy draining effects of caffeine. Obviously, my second experiment, which occurred a number of weeks later, involved the same process and four Mokas; again there was cake frosting and it was quite a success, though I did suffer some jitters and stomach discomfort. Worth noting, I estimate a caffeine content of approximately 200mg per Moka, with acute overdose levels starting somewhere around the 300mg range, modulo tolerance; hospitalization can be necessary for as little as 2000mg. Not willing to be deterred, or perhaps just being a complete idiot, later on came experiment three: five Mokas boiled down to one cup. Experiment three was a complete failure, perhaps there was too much caffeine, perhaps it was a lack of cake frosting; whatever the reason, I was done in. I couldn’t focus; my hands shook to a large degree; I was nauseated to the point of vomiting; it took a substantial portion of my willpower to hide my situation from my teachers and peers, eventually making it through the day, collapsing in bed and sleeping for an excessive period of time.
Aside from the negative effects immediately following experiment three, I developed a strong psychosomatic allergy to the flavor of coffee, as indicated by an inability to stomach decaffeinated coffee, coffee ice cream or anything with a hint of coffee flavor while still being able to consume large quantities of caffeinated soda. Every so often, I have tried to consume something coffee related, usually trying for very minimally coffee options, and I have slowly found myself more capable of stomaching them. Most recently, I think that I had a bottled Starbucks frappachino drink thing and was only somewhat nauseated by the experience.
Today, however, I would say that I have only been minimally nauseated; to such a minimal extent, I would say, that I may see about bringing coffee back into my life. My psychosomatic coffee intolerance is a weakness of constitution that I would really like to kick. Further testing is clearly necessary but I am cautiously optimistic.
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