Too Good to Sip: My Toxic Romance with Coffee

I should probably quit drinking coffee—not because it’s bad for me, but because it’s too good, like a lover who ruins you for everyone else.

This revelation smacked me in the face after a visit to my in-laws in Prescott Valley. There, in the quiet altitude of Arizona suburbia, I encountered coffee nirvana via a Ninja coffee maker—a machine that makes my Keurig taste like it was brewed through a gym sock. The Ninja’s brew was hotter, stronger, bolder. It had the depth of a Russian novel and the intensity of a Quentin Tarantino monologue. I immediately bought one for myself, eager to elevate my mornings into spiritual events. And elevate them I did—too far.

Now my life has become tragically front-loaded. The coffee is too exquisite. It’s an overachiever. Nothing that follows—emails, errands, workouts, social obligations—can match its rich, scalding glory. My day peaks at 7:12 a.m., and everything after is a slow descent into lukewarm mediocrity. My existence has become a parade of yawns between two cups of perfection.

This isn’t living. It’s a caffeine cult. And I’m the high priest.

So what am I to do? Only one solution remains: renounce coffee. Banish the beans. Crawl out of this roasted rut and reinvent myself as a man unshackled from the tyranny of joy. I will become someone who experiences life itself—not just life plus Arabica.

Or so I’d like to believe. Because deep down, I know I’ll just replace one ritual with another. Like that British expat novelist who lives in Tunisia, the one with the butler who brings him tea and a giant slab of cake every afternoon. That’ll be me. Earl Grey at four, carrot cake on Monday, German chocolate on Tuesday, and so on. I’ll swap a vice, rename it “ritual,” and carry on.

Coffee may be gone, but the cravings will simply find new costumes.