Coffee, Tea or Me

Anyone who knows me knows that I live much of my life around coffee.

Let me  rephrase that.

"good" coffee.

After all, life's too short for bad coffee. I will be the first to admit, I am a snob when it comes to coffee. I used to drink whatever just to get through long nights in studio at college. Then is carried over when I began work. But as I have moved on in my life, my love of coffee has grown and my palette has become more sophisticated. I have a friend form Seattle to thank for this by the way...

I believe my interest really grew back in 2005 on a trip to Key West. While there we stopped at a coffee roaster (Baby's Coffee), actually not just any coffee roaster, but the southernmost coffee roaster in the United States. Long story short, I was getting a lot of my coffee from there for quite some time. Roasted in small batches, always whole bean, it was something I looked forward to at Christmas time when I'd get a few pounds... it never seemed to last long enough though.

Since then, I've ventured into local roasts here and when on vacation I ALWAYS try to find a local roaster to taste their creations. Most of the time I am not disappointed.

Not too long ago I was introduced to tea. Maybe that's not quite right - I've had tea before, but mostly it was a drink for when I was under the weather with a cold or flu. I think some of the lackluster image of it stemmed from that, but it never gave me the same satisfaction as a good cup of coffee.

Until a couple of months ago.

Steph got me a cup of tea in the middle of the afternoon as a "pick me up"and I'll admit I was slightly disappointed when she said it was tea (hoping for a coffee), but when I tried it, I was pleasantly surprised. It was an amazing taste and on top of that, it had an awesome level of caffeine in it. I later found out it was a blend -- chai / mate with as much caffeine as a cup of coffee -- that sold me. I ended up going back to the tea store and getting some as an alternative to coffee (shudder the thought). I am still quite the die hard coffee drinker, but having an option isn't too bad.

I did have a bit of a disappointing day yesterday when I broke one of my beloved coffee mugs that I've had since college -- from the same Seattle friend. It had an image with "just say no to decaf" saying on it. It served me well every weekend for 16 years. It will be sadly missed as it was a nice large mug with a big handle. I have plenty of others to fall back on, but it won't be the same...

On a running note, I got out for a 15k today. It was a little sloppy with some slushy spots along the way, but overall felt great, hit a lot of hills and still managed an 8:58/mile average. Looking forward to the trail run series that starts next month. I now feel ready for them as well as a half marathon. I think I've decided on the Geist Half Marathon for this spring. I have two days to sign up before prices go up, so guess I had better get to it...

Now, time for a cup of coffee. Until then keep on running.