RIP, coffee. We're breaking up, but somehow I'm still functioning.

A love letter and a goodbye to coffee.

I don’t have a lot of vices. I never smoked cigarettes and I don’t drink. It’s not because of the typical red-faced reaction that so many Asians are afflicted with. Whatever. I can deal with the occasional embarrassment of breaking out in hives in social situations, but similar to my sensitivity to mold and chemical agents like bleach and common household cleaners, the lingering effects of alcohol sit lodged in my chest as if it’s squeezing my lungs with a vice grip. The discomfort is not worth any temporary buzz.

But coffee? It may have been my only vice, but it was also a true love. A companion on solo cafe outings. A companion on cozy winter days under a blanket with a good book. A companion when I’m lonely. So even though everything about my current health struggles points to quitting caffeine, I couldn’t accept that something I loved so much was turning on me.

Have you ever gone to bed anticipating that first blissful cup in the morning? It’s literally my first thought when I wake up as one of us makes our way in groggy sleepiness to turn on the machine in the kitchen. A minute later, the drip drip gurgling is music as steam rises from the pot. The aroma that wafts through the apartment is morning comfort wrapped in earthy, caramelized bitterness.

This is what addiction does. It slips in gently at first with innocence and pleasure, but then the body wants it, looks for it, and demands more of it. Soon, you find that you can’t function without it. Like a scorned lover turned vengeful enemy, it punishes you if you try to quit and won’t relinquish its clutches without inflicting pain.

Ok dramatic, but maybe not when so many of us are happily addicted and will surrender just about anything for that first cup in the morning.

I was actually a latecomer to the allure of coffee. It seems sacrilege now, but I barely had more than a few sips here and there in all my years in the Pacific Northwest during my twenties. I regret it now. I was living in the epicenter of 90s coffee culture and I didn’t know that I could have had it so good.

Maybe growing up in NYC had something to do with it. Coffee came in those iconic paper cups from the corner bodega (it still does). “A milk and two sugars” is what you’d say to the deli guy behind the counter who’d hand you that blue and white cup faster than you can count a New York minute. It was sweet, lacked depth, and tasted like dirty water, so I never understood what the fuss was all about. I didn’t get indoctrinated into the cult of coffee addicts as a teen who couldn’t wait to grow up, nor as an art student in the East Village who wanted to be cool standing in the studio with a cup of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

It wasn’t until I finished grad school back in NY and started a design job that I got seduced. My desk was near the office kitchen where there was always a carafe of fresh-brewed coffee wafting my way. One day, I poured myself a cup as a means of procrastination during a tough creative block. Soon, it became two cups. By the time my kids came around, it was a necessity for survival in getting through those sleep-deprived days.

By then, cafe culture proliferated in NYC and the coffee got better. The city finally caught on to what the northwest cities figured out early—that coffee isn’t just utilitarian, it can also be sublime. Lattes, cappuccinos, macchiatos, cortados. I drank the bitterness in and learned to appreciate the nuance of flavor when I stopped adding sugar. For the first time, I began to understand the adjectives used to describe all the different notes: nutty, fruity, spicy, chocolatey, smoky, earthy, or smooth.

My spouse, a NW native and therefore a coffee snob, was thrilled to finally share his love of coffee with me. On our yearly trips back, we would load our suitcases with multiple bags of beans collected from coffee crawls around Portland and Seattle and would bring them home to Brooklyn.

But about two months ago, I quit. Actually, I quit all caffeine. I couldn’t do decaf as a gradual off-ramp either because the acidity of coffee beans is as much of an aggravator for me as caffeine. I tried quitting once before, but failed in spectacular fashion about eight months ago. I suffered through some of the worst migraines I’d ever had. The withdrawal took me down so hard that I decided it wasn’t worth it and I happily returned to my addiction.

But I did broker a little compromise. I gradually went down to just one cup in the morning from my usual two or three throughout the day. Maybe that’s why in April, when I was desperate to find the culprit of my triggers after a really bad episodic flair, I decided to go cold turkey. The withdrawal this time around wasn’t quite as bad as my first failed attempt.

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It seems silly to grieve something as trivial as the loss of your morning cup, but you and I both know coffee is more than just a beverage. It’s the scent of morning rituals, of pauses, and small luxuries. It’s an invitation to belong in shared third spaces with strangers. It’s a community builder and it forges bonds across tables.

But caffeine is also a wily trickster. It fools our brains into thinking we’re not tired and prevents other signals from getting through. It’s such a convincing imposter that it slips undetected into our receptors and blocks the molecules in our bloodstreams that makes us feel drowsy. Quitting anything after an unwavering daily habit of 25 years isn’t easy—coffee was life! But six weeks later, I emerge from a haze of brain fog and begin to regain control of my body as it readjusts and regulates itself.

That cunning trickster masquerading as an adenosine blocker has now exited my body, I think. The tiredness is all mine now. The afternoons are tougher than mornings, but I’m learning to live without it. I’ll reluctantly concede that it’s helping me sleep better too. This is an admission from a life-long insomniac who’s coming clean as I never wanted to suspect that caffeine had anything to do with my poor sleep.

I used to think that coffee was the anchor to my days, but maybe what I needed instead was the release. There is no more buzz, no more crash. Just the morning quiet of slow awakenings and a little less anxiety.

My favorite coffees

Just because I’ve had to quit coffee for medical reasons, doesn’t mean you have to. I’m far from a coffee connoisseur, but here are a few of my favorite cafes and roasters who ship nationwide. And also…alternatives.

In the PNW:

• Olympia Coffee (Olympia) - Our all time favorite coffee roaster. Perhaps we’re unashamedly biased since Olympia is Mark’s hometown (I also lived there for three years), but it is seriously good coffee.

• Heart Roasters (Portland) – Sometimes I feel like I’m cheating on Olympia Coffee with Heart because there are times when I think this is the best coffee I’ve ever had.

• Elm Coffee Roasters (Seattle) - I don’t have a favorite Seattle roaster because there are so many, but this is one I really enjoy.

• Ghost Note Coffee (Seattle) - This unassuming cafe kind of blew me away last year with its inventive signature drinks. Never thought that espresso, smoked grapefruit rosemary syrup, coconut water, lime, and sparkling water would make such a wonderful combination. Seems like espresso tonics are now catching on.

In New York City:

• La Cabra (via Denmark) - Always crowded because it might be one of the best coffees I’ve had in NYC.

• Abraco - Another favorite—and also always crowded.

• Ando Patisserie - For coffees with an Asian twist—think black sesame lattes and iced jasmine lattes.

Coffee alternatives:

• Teeccino – A caffeine and acid-free herbal coffee alternative in a teabag made from dandelion, chicory, ramón, and carob. Decent, though I’ve yet to try all the varieties.

• Dandy Blend – My new go-to. Another blend of roasted chicory, barley, dandelion and rye. It almost tastes just like coffee. Like, it tastes enough like coffee that I can almost fool myself in the morning—and that’s honestly saving me.

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Happy father’s day! Here’s a a father’s day post from the archives

The last conversation with my father

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And lastly…weekly links

To read:

• How ‘Coffees’ Made With Chickpeas and Barley Compare (Bloomberg)
  Climate change and rising costs are giving way to even more coffee alternatives. Looks like I have some new brands to try.

•  Timbaland just created an entirely artificial artist and its debut single is out soon – “TaTa is a living, learning, autonomous music artist built with AI. She’s the first artist of a new generation” (Music Radar)
  Timbaland might be a brilliant producer, but this is just why???? And who is this for?? They’re calling it A-pop (“Tata” is Asian-esque, I guess) and I hope this whole project massively fails.

• The drawing dress: a visual chronicle of the I Inside the Old Year Dying tour (PJ Harvey)
  Band members marked 71 shows in 55 cities with a drawing on PJ Harvey’s dress each time before stepping on stage (I love PJ Harvey).

• Dismissed by DEI: Trump’s Purge Made Black Women With Stable Federal Jobs an “Easy Target (ProPublica)
  It really is infuriating that this administration’s cuts are disproportionately costing Black women their careers, but are we surprised?

• Teachers Are Not OK – AI, ChatGPT, and LLMs "have absolutely blown up what I try to accomplish with my teaching." (404 Media)
  I can’t imagine the new challenges that teachers are facing as AI tools flood the classroom. Will education and teaching need to be rethought?

To watch (or listen):

A conversation between Ezra Klein and Jonathan Haidt, author of “The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness,” which explores the decline of the “play-based childhood” and the rise of the “phone-based childhood.” A good listen.