If the coffee you've drunk for twenty years has started hitting differently, it's probably not the coffee that changed.
6 minute read
I'd had two cups every morning since my twenties, and one after lunch on a long day. Somewhere in my late forties they stopped agreeing with me. I'd be shaky for an hour, my stomach would be sour all afternoon, and I wouldn't sleep properly. I blamed the beans first, and then the machine. It took me a year to blame my age, and even then I had the reason wrong.
The Cup That Used to Be the Easy Part of the Morning
It crept up. The first cup started leaving me a bit shaky by nine, which it had never done. The second sat on my stomach for the rest of the morning. And if I had one after lunch, which I'd done for twenty years without a second thought, I'd be wide awake at two in the morning with my mind going round like a washing machine.
I didn't change anything, because there was nothing obvious to change. It was the same coffee in the same kitchen. So for the best part of a year I just felt rubbish and put it down to the job and the kids being teenagers, and to being this age generally. A woman on a forum I read said that if anyone had told her in her forties she'd feel about seventy-nine she wouldn't have believed them, and I laughed out loud, because I knew exactly what she meant.
The one thing I never suspected was the coffee. It was so much part of the furniture that it never occurred to me it was the problem.
Why the Same Two Cups Stopped Working
The frustrating answer is that the coffee hadn't changed at all, but I had, in three ways as far as I can tell.
The first is tolerance. A cup I'd once have shrugged off by teatime now stayed with me into the evening, so the two o'clock coffee was still keeping me awake at two in the morning.
The second is sleep, which is where it all adds up. A worse night meant a groggier morning, which meant a stronger coffee, which meant a shakier nine o'clock and another worse night. I'd been going round that loop for months without noticing.
The third is my stomach, which had become a lot more sensitive. Another woman on the same forum put it well: the things she'd got away with years ago had a much bigger effect on her now. She meant a rich dinner or a second glass of wine, and for me it was a big coffee on an empty stomach at seven, every single day.
The loop I'd been running
- A worse night
- A groggier morning
- A stronger coffee
- A shaky nine, a sour afternoon, a cup after lunch
then back to 1
An illustration of the pattern described above, not a measurement of anyone.
A Cup With Fibre in It, and No Caffeine After Lunch
Once I looked at it as a loop rather than as the coffee, the way out was obvious. I could keep the cup. What had to change was what the first cup of the day did to the rest of it.
The first cup had to give my stomach something to work on, rather than acid on an empty stomach. That means fibre, which feeds the bacteria that do your digesting for you and which most of us are short of: 88% of UK adults don't reach the recommended 30g a day. [1] It had to hold up on its own, without a second cup at ten to prop it up. And anything after lunch had to be caffeine-free, so I wasn't paying for it at two in the morning.
I'd tried enough miracle products to know better. All I wanted was the cup I already had, minus the three things it was now costing me.
I Already Had a Cupboard Full of Supplements
There was an obvious objection, and I'd have made it myself: I already had a cupboard. There was magnesium for the sleep, vitamin D because everybody says so, a probiotic, and a fibre sachet that tasted of wallpaper paste, which is why the box was still nearly full. I was at the age where you have a cupboard, and I was not adding a fifth thing to it.
So the only version of this I was prepared to try was one that took things out of the cupboard rather than putting one more in.
The cupboard, before
- Magnesium, about a third used
- Vitamin D, about a third used
- A probiotic, about a third used
- A fibre sachet, box nearly full
Illustrative. Bonjour is a food supplement and does not replace a varied, balanced diet or any medicine or supplement you have been advised to take.
Where Bonjour Came In
Bonjour is a French drink powder you have instead of your morning coffee, and it's the reason the cupboard is now a shelf. One cup has the fibre, the vitamins and minerals, and the plant extracts in it, instead of a row of separate tubs.
- Prebiotic acacia fibreSomething for your gut to work on first thing, instead of acid on an empty stomach.
- 2,700mg of plant and mushroom extracts750mg lion's mane, 750mg chaga, 750mg cordyceps, 300mg mallow, 150mg ginseng. Every dose published.
- Six vitamins and mineralsD3, B12, E and K2, plus zinc and selenium. B12 and D3 contribute to normal energy-yielding metabolism and to the reduction of tiredness and fatigue.
- No sugar at allThere's nothing in it to spike, so there's nothing to come down from.
- Caffeine-free options for after lunchCocoa, Choco Hazelnut, Rooibos Chai, Decaf and Chamomile have none. Coffee and Original carry 35mg, four to five times less than a regular coffee.
- Ready in about thirty secondsOne 6g sachet, 200ml of hot water or milk.
Up to 54% off plus 3 free gifts on the three-month plan. Change or stop it any time.
Sugar-free, vegan, gluten-free, lactose-free, nothing artificial. Made and third-party tested in France. A food supplement does not replace a varied, balanced diet and a healthy lifestyle.
The Same Two Cups, Twenty Years On
I still have two cups in the morning. The first is a Bonjour coffee, which has four to five times less caffeine than the one it replaced and something for my stomach to work on. It tastes closer to a smooth mocha than to an espresso, and it's better made with oat milk than with water. The second is a cocoa, mostly because I like it. After lunch it's the rooibos chai, and I've had it at four o'clock and been asleep by eleven, because there's nothing in it to keep me up.
The shaky nine o'clock went first. The sour afternoons went a few weeks later, once my stomach had worked out that the first thing in it each day wasn't going to be a fight. The two in the morning went when the afternoon coffee did, which in hindsight I could have worked out on my own.
I feel my age rather than twenty-five, and after a year of feeling about seventy-nine that is a considerable improvement.
Nothing else about my morning changed, only what was in the cup.
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