The past two months have been an emotional rollercoaster, but not in the same way the year before has been. In particular, I've discovered coffee for myself, then overdosed on caffeine, then discovered country coffee for myself. Now, what the heck does that mean? And is that really that emotional a journey?
Well, partly. But let's go about this in order.
I've been addicted to energy drinks for a while now. It used to be the taste, then it was for the caffeine and taurine and whatever else is in there, and now I feel it's the taste again. I fancy the Monster Energy Nitro and The Doctor flavours in particular. A blend of citrussy sourness and a strangely sweet aftertaste. It's something you don't really get from conventional orange sodas. But what kinda became a problem was, of course, the exorbitant cost. I simply cannot afford to pay more than a Euro per can, so I thought to find a different source of caffeine to subsist on.
Coffee came to mind right away, but I had some bad experiences with it in the past. I'm not a fan of overly bitter beverages, and the instant coffee my mum used to buy was extremely bitter. Not strong, mind you. Just... bitter. So I went for a mild roast, which was a very different experience. Coffee, when you're not just plonking some powder into a cup, is a pretty big commitment; at least compared to what my morning routine used to be.
It took some while to get used to, but now I just drink the coffee black. A bit of sugar can remove some of the bitterness, stemming from my poor technique (please clap), but I think it goes great together with the strawberry jam sandwiches I make for myself each breakfast.
Recently, however, I've had to think about the environmental concerns my coffee brings. Shipping it over from the southern hemisphere all the way to Germany can't ever be eco-friendly, and the working conditions for anything non-fairtrade/organic are - I would assume - not ethically conscionable. So I went looking for alternatives, and discovered that you can just make a coffee-esque beverage from any ol' grain. It's called country coffee in English, though in Germany it's known as... Muckefuck ('mokka faux').
Barley and rye are the ones I saw most commonly, though I also saw someone advocating for lupinus, as the beans are pretty similar in texture and roasting conditions to coffee beans. All of these are not only better for the environment, but also infinitely cheaper to make. Roasting is as simple as heating up a pan and stirring violently for a couple of minutes, and you can grind with any ol' hand grinder - be it one of the super fancy ones, or just a regular wooden mocha grinder. No fancy machines or required. Heck, not even a paper filter. And the price per kg is also at roughly a fifth for each of these compared to coffee beans (1.60 to 2€ compared to upwards of 10€ per kg).
The only issue? Muckefuck doesn't actually have any caffeine in it! That makes it pretty suboptimal for most people I'd bet, but I thought: "Hey, if I'm already obsessing this much over it to the point I'm dedicating half of this post to it, I might as well try and live without caffeine for a few weeks or so." So right now, I'm living off grain juice with my breakfast, basically. And adding oat milk to it... Am I becoming a vegetarian? Probably not.
And yeah, turns out I never needed caffeine as much as I thought I did. Not having it doesn't affect my mood or alertness at all. What I really needed was just a comfier bed - which I now also have! So, uhh... oops!