POLL: Your Morning Brew?

[Jenise]

What does it take to start your day? (If you're a multiple option person like me, choose the one you drink most often.)

Coffee. ASAP.

Tea, preferably Earl Grey, so strong it looks like coffee, with sugar and milk. If one of the dogs (or the husband) kept me up during the night, I will use two bags.

First cup always an oolong. Second cup, always coffee.

Coffee. IV drip if necessary.

One pot of French roast.

Tea, preferably Earl Grey, so strong it looks like coffee, with sugar and milk.

Ditto!

If it weren't for coffee, I would never have been able to hold down an 8 to 5 job.

[Robin Garr]

What does it take to start your day? (If you're a multiple option person like me, choose the one you drink most often.)

Depends on how you define it. Tall glass of icy, fresh-squoze juice upon awakening. Then after breakfast a brisk walk up to the nearby coffee shop for espresso or, more likely, a latte or cappuccino. I do enjoy my caffeine, but don't need it first thing.

Pu Erh in the morning. Green in the evening.

rwj

My first-thing in the morning ritual is 2 large glasses of water followed by a large glass of V8 Fusion followed by a large McD's coffee when I get to the office.

And yes, I think McD's coffee is good now.

At home it's Kenyan pods via the Senseo.

This morning I started with a cup of bittergourd tea. I've given up all caffeine, so this or peppermint tea is my start to the day.

Knudsen Very Veggie Juice, low sodium with a wedge of fresh lemon squeezed into the class and the wedge dropped in, several splashes of Tabasco Chipotle Sauce or any of the seven hot sauces I have in my refer. After breakfast, I may have some tea while I'm doing my dinner prep. Twice a week I go to Raleys and get a Chai iced tea with suger free vanilla flavoring and non-fat milk. In the winter, I like a latte with suger free hazelnut and fat free milk. I'm subject to change from week to week but never vary from the Very Veggie juice...on this I am addicted!

I need my coffee so much that seeing the thread's title, I thought the survey would be about what kind of COFFEE we brew! There are people in the world who don't drink coffee first thing??? Who knew (okay, I did, really. Gary drinks a cup of tea every morning. But he's British. He wouldn't count for this survey. Right?)

And my current favorite coffee is Costa Rican, ever since a friend brought a pound back after a visit there...And I make a double espresso with milk...

B

And my current favorite coffee is Costa Rican, ever since a friend brought a pound back after a visit there...And I make a double espresso with milk...

I'm with Robin: breakfast begins with OJ, the fresher the better. Coffee follows, but an hour or so later. And, since you brought up the topic, my preferred coffee is a medium-roast from Indonesia or Papua New Guinea. I'm quite partial to aged Sumatra, but a true Mocha-Java is very hard to argue with. I like the earthiness of the Pacific coffees, though some of the "lifted" notes of E. African coffees are quite appealing, too. And I prefer filter brewed but use a French press at work for convenience.

Mark "Coffeegeek" Lipton

Ooh, Mark,I'm going to have to try all of those...The thing I like about the costa Rican coffee is the "mocha-ness" of it...

But me? I need coffee FIRST THING. But I'll try freshly squeezed OJ, too. I like that idea.

I take a shot of Goji juice, followed by a cup of strong coffee, sometimes with loads of cream.

As to whether I "need" coffee or not.....let's put it this way: I'm sure all of us know the first things that most men have to do on waking. Me too, but not until I've thrown the switch that starts the espresso machine doing its thing.

In the morning ... espresso, strong, black, no milk, no sugar and then one more before the brain starts to operate ina formal manner. Later,if more at home, double espresso, not quite as strong or, if I'm at one of my local hangouts, double macchiato with my croissant or brioche.

Best
Rogov

I love coffee but abused it to the point where I had to give it up. Morning, noon and night I drank coffee.

Before work in the morning I would drink the “good stuff” at home, but once I got to work I would drink the “bad stuff” they had there for free. It was not long before I started hanging out with the wrong crowd that would go to the local coffee shop for an espresso around 11:00AM every day. Co-workers started to give me strange looks when I would fire up the coffee maker at 4:00PM, 5:00PM and even make up excuses why I had to work late so I could get my free fix at 7:00PM.

I hit “rock bottom” one day when I ran out of coffee at home and went to work only to discover that their coffee machine was broken! After grabbing the empty coffee pot, I slumped to the ground like an animal taking a shot from a rifle and just stared into the empty pot while moaning, “coffee, coffee, coffee”. It was then that I realized coffee should not rule my life.

After one intervention and a trip to rehab, I am clean now.

Water.

My sympathies, Dave. I pretty much only drink coffee at home, one big latte in the morning. I've been known to pack my machine for vacations. But after that? I am too picky to drink what they make most places. So I don't even bother. (A wild day is making a second latte--like this morning, I have that luxury....)

And yes, I think McD's coffee is good now.

I agree. It is good.

I need coffee. So does Len. I like mine hot, he likes his cold.
So, I keep an endless supply of cold brew toddy coffee for him in the fridge. Then every night after doing the evening's dishes, I set up my Krups to brew 6 cups before I wake up (since like a lot of you I have come to depend on it FIRST THING). Brewing 6 cups really only amounts to about 2 1/2 mugs of coffee and I drink at least two cups with a little Splenda and real half and half. Then I switch to water.

[Jenise]

First cup always an oolong. Second cup, always coffee.

Interesting. Why the order?

[Jenise]

You guys are so interesting!

For years, though I loved tea, I felt pretty wedded to my morning cup. Tea any other time of day but I really liked coffee right off the bat. Never felt I needed it, though, until I had to give up caffeine for awhile medically and found myself having a month-long withdrawal headache. That was about ten years ago and I found the experience so disturbing that I vowed I wouldn't go back to caff, however I just couldn't make myself like decaf in spite of the fact that I went to some effort to locate great versions--for awhile, I had all my coffee shipped in from a roaster in Indiana. I lived in California at the time. Then a few years ago I realized how good green tea would be for my husband, a cancer patient, and about the same time discovered French Press coffee. So nowadays we drink mostly tea, but some days coffee sounds better and we make that choice. Never drink more than a cup each, though, and I'm happy to report that on the days we don't have coffee, which is the majority, we don't feel any pangs of withdrawal and we have no other source of caffeine in our diet. I now feel that the morning cuppa is more about the warmth than the caffeine. On warm days we often skip hot bevs altogether and just drink orange juice. I do find that the bit of natural sugar is a good energizer.

True coffee-related story: A friend of mine named Gary really just can't get going in the morning without coffee. He's slow as a slug until he has at least two cups. He makes coffee only for himself because his wife leaves for work much earlier and doesn't drink coffee until she gets to work. So Gary gets up one morning and finds the coffee bin empty. In a frenzy he tears apart the kitchen thinking there must be more somewhere, but there isn't. So he thinks, "Morrie will have coffee." Morrie and Gary have been best friends since high school, even moving to this neighborhood at the same time so they could eventually enjoy retirement together. He calls but there's no answer. However, he's certain Morrie's home so, still half asleep, he gets in his golf cart and drives halfway across the neighborhood to Morrie's house to borrow coffee. Gary's golf cart is electric, so it's silent in Forward and in Reverse it goes BING BING BING. He pulls into their driveway which is very narrow because it's a view lot and the parking area is actually uphill and in back of the house, as is the front door. Morrie and Lynn's bedroom is right there on the uphill driveway corner. The parking deck's full of cars because Morrie was cleaning out the garage. There is no room to turn the cart around, and so the first thing Gary notices after putting the cart in Park about eight feet from that bedroom window is that he'll have to back down the driveway. The second thing that enters his very thick, caffeine-deprived skull is that the bedroom window is open and coming out of the window is the unmistakeable sound of his best friend and his best friend's wife having a very spirited session of lovemaking. Apparently, Lynn, who is famous for her uproarious laugh, is no less quiet in this mode.

So he's STUCK. He is so very very stuck. He can't back down that driveway, and he can't not listen. So he waits, and he marvels at the fact that even this does not fully wake him up while he contemplates what he'll do when it's finally safe to move. Does he wait until he hears the shower go on (please God, he thinks, let them need a shower) and attempt to back down the driveway then or does he ring the doorbell. The dilemma is that if he does the first, he has to get out fast because if one of them heads for the kitchen they'll see him drive away. If he waits, how long does he wait? How long would be long enough for them not to think he was sitting outside their bedroom window listening to this most private of things?

It proved too much for his addled brain to sort out, and his own needs were too great. He rang the doorbell, and when Morrie answered he said, "Listen, buddy, I've been out here all morning listening to and Lynn go at it, and I'm going to be late to work because of you. Now give me some coffee."





This is why they didn't answer the phone.