What does your ideal morning look like? Mine definitely includes having time to myself to read the newspaper and drink my coffee.
And not just a cup of Keurig coffee (although there are some tasty varieties). Last month, I tried a honey cinnamon latte at a coffee shop in downtown DC, and I’d love to be able to enjoy a similar hot beverage at home.
In order for my ideal morning to become a reality, a few important things would have to happen first… READ MORE!
If you dropped by my house at 1 PM, you’d notice something peculiar: Silence.
In the early afternoon, my home is finally, blissfully quiet. Levi’s at preschool, Asa’s been asleep for an hour, and the dog’s curled up on the sofa cushion.
After I eat my lunch, I usually grab a seat on the couch next to Briscoe and open up my laptop to work on a blog post or schedule some social media updates. My window of uninterrupted silence typically lasts only two hours, so there’s pressure to make the most of it.
However, between my post-lunch food coma, my chronic motherhood-induced exhaustion, and the cozy quietness of the afternoon, all I always want to do is snuggle up under a throw blanket for a nap. Every day I have to decide: Do I drink coffee or take a nap?
Since I don’t have the luxury of an eight-hour work day, I have to take advantage of any pockets of quiet time I can find. But as a sleep-deprived mother of two, I’m desperate to catch up on my zzz’s. A well-rested mom is a less cranky mom.
What would you do? Nap or pour yourself another cup of coffee?
(Yes, I realize this a very specific problem for work-at-home or stay-at-home moms. Unless you work in an office that encourages you to nap under your desk, many of you have no choice but to chug coffee when your cortisol levels start to drop.)
Science says nap. According to research, napping can improve perceptual learning, procedural motor skill, and verbal memory more than 200mg of caffeine can — as long as you’re asleep for 60 to 90 minutes. That’s a long time when you’re being haunted by a never-ending to-do list.
A power nap lasting 10 to 30 minutes is your next best bet, but it has to be timed just right. If you sleep past 30 minutes but wake up before a full hour, you risk sleep inertia, or grogginess, that can last several hours. And if you nap too late in the afternoon, you can throw off your circadian rhythm, making it harder to fall asleep that night.
Meanwhile, coffee will make you feel more physically awake but “may not be an adequate substitute for the memory enhancements of daytime sleep,” according to the study. In other words, caffeine may prevent your eyelids from shutting, but your Toasted Graham Latte won’t necessarily improve your ability to crunch numbers or string sentences together.
When I’m no longer able to keep my eyes open or concentrate on my work, I try a “coffee nap” — drinking a cup of coffee and then setting my iPhone alarm for a 15-minute nap. In a series of studies, sleep researchers in England found that coffee naps were more effective than cold air, a short nap, a break with no nap, or a 10-ounce cup of strong coffee. The idea is that the caffeine, which takes about 20 minutes to kick in, will start having its physiological effects just as you are waking up.
The key is, of course, to fall asleep before the caffeine starts doing its job. And since I tend to sip rather than gulp my coffee, I often end up reaping the benefit of just the caffeine and not of the actual daytime sleep. Which isn’t the worst thing in the world, I suppose, except that blog posts hard much harder to write when I can’t remember what it is I wanted to say.
How do you stay awake when you start feeling sleepy during the day?
PS – These are the two best times of day to drink coffee.
Have you ever tried a cronut? We were living in Omaha when Chef Dominique Ansel’s croissant-doughnut hybrid went viral two years ago and quickly became a worldwide sensation. A bakery near our house even started producing their own version of the trendy pastry, but I wanted my first cronut experience to be at Dominique Ansel Bakery in New York City where it was invented… READ MORE!
It may not come as a surprise that I drink a lot of coffee. Asa has only started sleeping through the night (well, 8pm to 5am) this past week, and Levi has enough stamina to power a colony of Energizer bunnies.
So I’m relieved to learn that drinking three to five cups of coffee each day is now only considered a moderate level of consumption, according to a new report.
The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, the country’s top nutrition panel, also found health benefits associated with drinking more than a couple of cups every day, including a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.
On an average day, I drink at least one oversize mug of French press coffee. Jordan, my personal barista, is all about experimenting with manual coffee brewing methods after we learned how to use a French press and a Chemex last year. By now he can eyeball measurements of beans and water, so the process goes relatively quickly.
The rest of the day, I’m using K-cups to make coffee in the Keurig machine. After touting the deliciousness of manual brewed coffee, I’m almost embarrassed to admit that we still use a Keurig. It’s just such a fast and effective way to brew one cup at a time, even if the taste is noticeably inferior to the French press coffee we enjoy in the mornings. (Jordan often compares it to dishwater.)
But maybe we’re just using the wrong K-cups. Thrillist enlisted a “world-class barista” from Austin to conduct a blind taste test of 23 K-cups, each made on the middle setting of a Keurig machine using water from a parallel-activated, carbon-filtered OptiPure system.
I’m assuming that means that even the worst-rated coffee of the group tasted better than what we make at home with water from the kitchen sink.
The five best tasting K-cup coffee:
You should definitely head over to Thrillist to check out the full list, which includes the taste tester’s descriptive reactions to each cup. For example, he says Dunkin’ Donuts K-cup coffee (#6) is “totally drinkable with cream and sugar, but develops a medicinal quality as it cools” and describes Tim Hortons Arabica (#17) as tasting like “chicken-flavored ramen noodles.”
I’ll add that Green Mountain Hazelnut isn’t so bad, especially when it’s made with steamed half-and-half and two scoops of organic sugar.
How do you enjoy your daily cup (cups?) of coffee? Are you a manual brew purist or will you use a Keurig machine for a quick and easy caffeine fix?
When I stumbled upon this infographic of coffee from around the world, I was surprised to see the four varieties attributed to the United States… READ MORE!
The way I see it, there are two kinds of coffee drinkers: those who enjoy it for the taste and those who consume it for the caffeine kick. Before JB and I had a lesson in manual brewing, I was content drinking pretty much anything as long as it came with a buzz.
Since then, however, we’ve become slightly obsessed with attaining the perfect cup of coffee at home. It’s been fun experimenting with different roasts, grinds, and brewing methods. (Our favorite, so far? The Chemex.)
Here are 11 gift ideas for coffee lovers that may inspire them to put down their Starbucks holiday drink and embrace the art of simple brewed coffee… READ MORE!
It’s time for our third lesson in manual brewing methods: How to use a Chemex.
Before JB and I learned how to use the various manual coffeemakers, including a French press and Clever, we decided we’d purchase whichever one we liked best. I’ll admit I was hoping the Chemex would be my favorite simply for aesthetic reasons. The hourglass-shaped glass with polished wood collar and leather tie would be a beautiful addition to our morning coffee ritual.
The design is so iconic, in fact, that it’s on permanent display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, among other institutions.… READ MORE!
Thank you so much for your enthusiastic response to last week’s lesson in coffee brewing! I chose to start with the French press because it’s the most well-known of the four manual brew methods. However, the Clever Dripper
If you’re only familiar with one method of manual brew coffee, I’ll bet it’s the French press.
Over the last few years, French press coffee become a popular addition to hipster coffee shops and Sunday brunch menus across the country. We discovered our own love for it at Lot 2, a modern restaurant in the Benson neighborhood of Omaha.
