The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
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Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
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Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
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Notes -
Coffee Haters Club
I reduced my intake to 16-24 grams of beans per day (one full strength cup or two slightly weaker cups). I did this mainly to improve my sleep after getting a bit carried away with using coffee as fuel, but also to keep some of the joy in this hobby instead of building too much tolerance towards it all. One should be a bit careful with raising standards. YOLO, but also being mindful of how regular consumption of good things makes them less special.
I've tried out decaffeinated whole beans that were treated with the Swiss Water Method. I'm not very impressed. There's a 'hole' in this coffee. Something is clearly missing, not just caffine but aroma/taste wise too. I bought a whole kg of the thing. It will have to serve as a vehicle for a cup of decaf with plenty of cream and sugar in the late afternoons.
The Gesha (also spelled Geisha) bean from Honduras which I mentioned to @Muninn I had ordered is very good. Apparently the bean type came into use in the town of Gesha in Ethiopia in 1930 or something? It was rumored to smell of jasmine, and it actually does. It's pretty cool. The drinking experience isn't all that different from any other decent bean though. It's too expensive to make a habit of, at 3x the cost vs most beans. I'll gladly try other Gesha beans if offered, but I can't justify regular purchases.
Other purchases lately:
Sierra Mazateca beans from Mexico. This one is great. It actually smelled vaguely of honey, but also berries at times. Recommended!
A mixed bag of Sumatra (Indonesia) and Ethiopian beans: Surprisingly good. It smells of a lovely spicy herb garden upon grinding. I didn't know anything about the practice of mixing different beans together, I only vaguely remember seeing that in the coffee shop in the game Persona 5. :P
Your review of the Swiss Water Method is sad. I had heard it's the best method for decaf coffee, and even it falls short. I think it's likely worth something despite that, but nothing really compares to a real cup of coffee.
I'm not fancy. I just drink Maxwell House from Sam's Club when I'm at work (.66 cups of coffee per cup of water; a little stronger than I like it, but everyone around me uses cream and sugar whereas I just drink it black) and I drink whatever other people make when I'm not at work. Somehow Grandma makes the best coffee. It's because the water in her town sucks and tastes weird, which somehow makes her coffee taste more distinctive. Other than that, I've tried other people's fancy bean roasts that they use their fancy burr grinders on. It really does taste good, but I already have the opportunity to spend tons of money elsewhere, and I like any coffee either way, so I'm content to live dragging my tail through the mud. Grandma is the same way.
Grandma also drinks coffee all throughout the day. This appears to not harm her in any way whatsoever, though she has a difficult time before or after surgeries when they tell her to drink water. She drinks very close to bedtime, too. Honestly, desensitizing yourself to caffeine might make sense. It means you can drink coffee all day like Grandma. I understand the impulse, though.
Sample size of one. Someone else with more experience with decaf will have to confirm. It's always possible that I was unlucky with this particular bag or this particular bean. I didn't buy one of the most expensive ones. Though the one I got was far from 'cheap'. Definitely expensive enough to, one would hope, ensure a sufficient level of seriousness in the production. I was surprised at how 'hollow' it seemed, aroma and taste wise.
Hah. :P
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