I am very relieved to report that the nasty queasiness that drinking hot coffee was causing me a couple of weeks ago has retreated along with 99% of the other effects from the flu. I’ve been a committed coffee drinker for so long that the prospect of saying sayonara to a key part of my morning routine was almost too bleak to face.

I didn’t suffer the lack of caffeine as much as you might think because I still managed to have a diet cola or two during the course of a typical day — always after 10:30 a.m., mind you, like civilized people. My work day is typically quite slow, especially in the morning, so it was possible to plod along without having to resort to senseless violence most days. And I kept testing the waters to see if my digestive system was showing signs of being amenable to coffee; an iced coffee here or there, a “cappucino” from the coffee machine at work, a small cuppa from Starbucks. By the middle of last week, it was clear that the effect had been temporary.

Yesterday I even made a special trip to Starbucks to try their new “everyday” coffee blend “Pike Place Roast”. Granted, I’ve been off my feet coffee-wise for a bit, but I have to tell you I thought it was terrible. No flavor to it at all. This is exactly the kind of coffee I will go out of my way to avoid. The Starbucks people say that they devised this blend to counter the criticisms they get about their coffee tasting “burnt”, but I suspect the people who complain about that are just people who don’t really like coffee in the first place or whose entire sensibility about coffee has been shaped by years of drinking instant.

I did decide to go with the flow and make the annual switch to iced coffee take hold a few weeks earlier than usual. I need to buy some good fresh beans and make up a pot so I don’t have to go to Dunkin’ Donuts every day. I use a drip maker to make my iced coffee at home. The coffee from my press pot is a bit too sludgy for good iced coffee. I’m also considering going half-caf in light of the lack of serious withdrawal. Gotta have some caffeine, after all. Just the other day the media all had a story about how caffeine protects your brain from dementia. I’m demented enough as it is.