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PIQUE'N YER INTEREST: Jittery Joe

I’ve never been a coffee guy. I disliked the taste and didn’t particularly want to acquire it. I’m not generally a fan of putting steaming hot liquids in my mouth.
coffee in whistler 28.12 GettyImages-1215824653

I’ve never been a coffee guy. I disliked the taste and didn’t particularly want to acquire it. I’m not generally a fan of putting steaming hot liquids in my mouth. I don’t like wasting money on things I don’t really need—I’d rather save up for bigger things that I also don’t really need. Most importantly, I did not want to rely on coffee to function like a normal person. 

I saw what happened to all of my friends that got hooked on the bitter bean juice. One minute they were normal plucky teens, the next they were grumpy zombies who couldn’t function until they got their first, second and sometimes third cup of coffee. It started out as a way to look older and they wound up looking old. It didn’t seem all that appealing when I could get by just fine without it—and I had a surplus of nervous energy to begin with. 

My anti-coffee stance continued through university, a time when most casual coffee drinkers get hooked. I always thought it was ridiculous that young people in the prime of their lives needed coffee so much that they’d walk around campus with their stupid travel mugs carabineered to their Jansport backpacks, dodging into classes in between refills. They drank tankloads of coffee to stay up to finish their essays and cram for exams, then pounded mug after mug through the day, punching their coffee cards at every stop. I had a friend who was getting a 10th cup free every three days. I couldn’t afford to eat some days and he was blowing $15 a day on coffee. 

Weaklings! If I ever needed a pick me up I would just head to a dark, quiet corner of the library and sneak in a quick nap. (Or not so quick. I once took a quick nap on the top floor of the Dalhousie library then set off every alarm after I woke up at 2:30 in the morning and tripped over every piece of furniture in the building trying to find a way out. If you’ve never seen a picture of the Killam Library, Google it—that place was spooky as hell.)

Even today, I still think it’s silly that people will hop in their cars and drive two hours to Whistler so they can walk their paper coffee cups around the village—a certain percentage of which always seem to end up on the side of trails and in the bushes. 

And yet, despite all of my years as a staunch anti-coffee advocate, it turns out I didn’t know beans. Coffee isn’t the addictive, magical elixir that people make it out to be. 

Well, technically it is addictive and I guess the effects might seem magical if you’re exhausted and/or constipated. But it’s not, by definition, an elixir—it’s a superfood.

An analysis of 127 different studies on coffee and coffee drinkers found that drinking 16 ounces of coffee a day—two big cups—can reduce your chance of getting cancer by 20 per cent, Type 2 diabetes by 30 per cent, Parkinson’s by 30 per cent and heart disease by five per cent (not huge but I’ll take it). I also have to believe that the laxative properties are also extremely beneficial.

After reading the study (Annual Review of Nutrition) I went from disliking the very idea of coffee to worrying about global bean production and whether it can keep up with the added demand. It took 40-plus-plus years on the planet, but I’ve finally started to drink coffee.

And I’m terrible at it. I put in too much oat milk because I don’t really like the taste. I still don’t like steaming hot beverages so I generally let it sit around until it’s warm and separated. I can’t tell the difference between different bean varieties, brands, blends, roasts or grinds, and I’m not sure I want to. But I’m drinking it anyway because the health benefits, if real, are worth it. Truth be told, I’m not as spritely in the mornings as I used to be, either, and I’d do almost anything to get back my old nervous energy. Keeping up the Whistler pace isn’t easy.

Every time I pour a cup, I wonder how stupid it is to pick up a new addiction this far along in life. 

I’ve tried other health beverages over the years—juicing, drinking four litres of water a day, having a glass of wine with dinner, smoothies, kombucha, kefir, wheat grass—with mixed results. Sometimes I would feel a little bit better, but it was impossible to keep these things up long enough to benefit from any long-term effects. If you ever consumed everything you’ve ever been recommended to eat and drink in a day you would literally explode. 

I have high hopes that coffee is something I can keep up because, as mentioned, it’s addictive and I won’t have a choice. I’m only a month into my science experiment, and I already feel like it’s not a choice anymore. I tried going a morning without it and was yawning by 10 a.m.—not those little yawns either, it was the kind that can pull your 40-plus-plus back out.

I’m not sure where this whole journey will take me. My hands are shaking with anticipation.