Sitting here in Starbucks today I happen to have my laptop, a bit of time and a reflective mind. The quad tall vanilla soy latte that would normally be sitting on the table next to me has been replaced with two Odwalla orange juices and an apple fritter whose size is both sad and disappointing. Regardless, the juice and the fritter have satisfied most of what I came here for.
When I look back at the amount of caffeine that I consumed on a daily basis over the past fifteen years, it’s no wonder I am on high blood pressure medicine and had perpetual sleeping problems if not outright insomnia.
I never could get used to the taste of coffee as a kid, but my father drank it constantly, and still does. The smell of coffee fills a special place in my mind, something akin to the warm blanket that my father used to tuck me in with as a child, right along with the smell of it on his breath as he whispered goodnight.
When we moved to Alaska, I was a junior in high school. We had moved from St. Petersburg, Florida, where the only reliable source of caffeine was a Mountain Dew. One time I even downed an entire twelve pack of Mountain Dew during a single lunch hour. That was old news however, here in Alaska they sell coffee on every other street corner and in most major grocery stores and unlike alcohol and tobacco, there is no age requirement to purchase coffee.
I was introduced to a rather eccentric fellow my junior year of high school. He was a home schooled hermit who had the entire basement of his parents’ house to himself. He had a name for it, but I can’t recall it. Well, we hit it off right from the start. His crazy, non-stop diatribe and warped humor kept a permanent smile on my face and the basement made for a most excellent place to hang out. Occasionally we ventured out of the basement and landed in the small town of Eagle River, which in 1995 consisted of a roundabout street that had some locally run shops and a centrally located Carr’s grocery store. The rest of it was residential. Well, my new home schooled friend was named Jason Vrabel, and he was about to show me the way of coffee.
I can’t remember the name of the coffee shop there, and it’s quite possible it no longer is there, something about a sleepless goat or dog or whatever. Anyways, we strolled inside and he ordered his drink: a quad shot sludge cup with ice… I had no idea what the hell he just ordered, but it was my turn, so I said “I’ll have the same.”
For those who are not versed in the ways of coffee, let me explain this particular beverage. The quad shot means four shots of espresso, which are then poured into a serving of the remnants of all the drip coffees of the day, hence the name sludge cup. Then the beverage is cooled to room temperature with the addition of several pieces of ice.
The ice was a very important factor for this drink, because otherwise it would be boiling hot and you would have to wait until you could sip it like any other normal hot beverage. This one was intended to be swallowed as quickly as possible for two reasons: one, it was so bitter that when it touched your tongue it gave the sensation that your eyes were going to melt. Two, the faster you drank it, the faster the caffeine got into your system. And there you have it, the beginning of my caffeine addiction in a nutshell. It took a lot of effort, a lot of money and there was a lot of loose lipped head shaking.
Over the years, my tastes matured and I took on a sweeter drink, though still just as powerful. My final masterpiece was a twelve ounce vanilla soy latte with four shots. About a four dollar drink, depending on where you go, plus a dollar tip to be nice.
What got me after my hospital visit from Canada was the addition of energy drinks. At the very end, I was drinking tall boy Amp energy drinks all day long and still meeting people for coffee, where I would get my signature drink. The Amp tall boy has somewhere in the neighborhood of 240mg of caffeine per can. No idea how much my coffee had in it, but let’s say it was equivalent to four cups of regular coffee, so 60mg times four, or 240mg of caffeine. Now I bet that I was drinking six to nine of those Amps each day, because the gas station had them on sale, buy two get one free, so I bought them three at a time, or sometimes six. Then I would sit at my computer or lay on my bed with my computer and drink these things like juice or water.
Quick math quiz: How much caffeine did Joshua consume on average daily?
Answer: Assuming two latte’s and six Amps, that’s 240mg x 8, which comes out to 1,920mg
Note: An article from the emedicine website refers to an average consumption per person per day of caffeine at levels of 70-100mg, about 200 in the US and Canada and more than 400 in Sweden and Finland.
And I wondered why I had trouble sleeping.
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