Coffee or Lemon

"Without my morning coffee I'm just like a dried up piece of roast goat."

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

I don't drink coffee first thing in the morning. I usually drink one cup late morning or with lunch or in the early afternoon. That's all my body can handle now. I used to be a big coffee drinker. Many full-bodied cups a day. Then, during pregnancy, actually both of them, I couldn't stand the smell of coffee. It made my nauseous. How cool is that? My body telling me it's not good for this baby. Later, when I drank coffee again, at first it was ghastly. Diarrhea, the jitters, well some of you how it is. But I persevered and was able to drink it again in moderate amounts. However, a while later I just quit drinking the stuff altogether. Now, this is a Finn talking, and we love our coffee, strong, and thick, the stick to your ribs kind of brew. Even though I lost a few points of Finnishness, a new habit was formed. From coffee I moved to lemon and water. The first thing in the mornings I heat up some water but not to boiling, because I read somewhere that it destroys the Vitamin C, squeeze a half or whole lemon into the water, and drink. It works much better than coffee to get me going in the mornings, if you know what I mean.......
Occasionally, I add a dash of cayenne or ginger but mostly I'm lazy and it's just the lemon and water. You can put honey in it if you like, but I have gotten used to the bitter taste, pure and natural. It's been over 30 years. Sometimes, like now, I am drinking the one cup of coffee too, just because it tastes so good, but it's easy to do without. I've never looked back. Lemon, ginger and cayenne are all stomach stimulants, and they help to make digestive juice but don't require much themselves. So, if I remember this reasoning .......there is a cleansing action first thing in the morning as the surplus digestive juices get rid of toxins in the body.

I like to think I haven't become a dried up piece of roast goat because of this practice.

I remember last year I was having a second cup of brew and my friend took it and chucked it out saying that I am like a chipmunk on speed when I drink too much. Coffee, that is.