May 09, 2019
The boss loves coffee
Last year Donagh unintentionally gave up coffee for 9 months. Here's how that went:
Most January and Februarys are packed with a pretty intense travel schedule. Add in a muscular back injury and things get a little more hectic. I had heard that coffee was bad for the lower back muscles and I was desperate. So I chose to forgo my morning habit, I was prepared to try anything.
Then once I stopped drinking coffee I just kept going, for no other reason other than to see if I could. Now let me put this in context, I don’t just love coffee, I study coffee. I have a hand grinder and a machine grinder, I have an aeropress, a stove top, a French press and an espresso maker and I use them all. I love coffee. One of my first jobs was as a barista in a place called the Roma Bar in Darwin, Australia. The owners knew their coffee and so did the customers. This is where my love of proper coffee began.
Anyway, back to the coffee hiatus... if you asked me why I still wasn’t drinking coffee I couldn’t have given you a proper answer. My back was better, my lack of coffee didn’t make me feel any better (that I noticed anyway). I actually had no set timeframe in mind for the hiatus. The main thing is, I travel a lot for work and I genuinely enjoy seeking out those little speciality coffee shops. And for months I didn’t try any of them.
Then one day back in Ireland I made a choice to start again. I could say that it was after a stint of sleepless nights with the kids but the reality was I was just ready to start drinking coffee again. I knew the first cup had to be worthy of breaking a 9 month drought so I went to 3FE in Dublin. And it was amazing!
Fast forward 6 months, I generally don’t drink coffee after lunch and for the most part keep it to 2 cups a day. But I don’t think I ever want to give it up again.