Cherisse Moe

For many Trin­bag­o­ni­ans, like much of the rest of the world, a morn­ing cup of cof­fee is a when rather than an if. But what hap­pens when the dai­ly rit­u­al bor­ders on ad­dic­tion or habit?

It is a cross­roads that led one for­mer Ja­va loy­al­ist to shake up her decade-long rou­tine.

“I’d have a cup to start my day and maybe a sec­ond halfway through,” shares Aba, a pub­li­cist and me­dia pro­fes­sion­al.

“I loved Hong Wing in par­tic­u­lar —lo­cal! I had my cof­fee strong, and it would help fu­el my day. Af­ter that first cup, I’d be ex­treme­ly vi­brant and ready to take on any­thing.”

But the morn­ing brew even­tu­al­ly took a toll on her phys­i­cal well-be­ing. To keep up with a de­mand­ing sched­ule, the self-pro­claimed worka­holic over the age of 40 start­ed track­ing day-to-day changes in her health.

“My reg­u­lar bot­tle had al­so in­creased in price quite dras­ti­cal­ly,” she says. “I am very strict when it comes to get­ting val­ue for mon­ey, so with no val­ue re­al­ly added, I im­me­di­ate­ly ditched it. I won’t say I was ad­dict­ed, but I knew it couldn’t be healthy for me to be as de­sirous as I was of the taste. What I did no­tice as time pro­gressed was the way my mood seemed to have been af­fect­ed. I’m very aware of the per­i­menopausal pe­ri­od of life, so I be­gan ques­tion­ing whether cof­fee could have been hav­ing an ef­fect on my hor­mones and pos­si­bly trig­ger­ing my moods.”

Un­der­stand­ing how the drink af­fects the body is where Dr Aneesa Rag­bir, Con­sul­tant En­docri­nol­o­gist and In­ter­nal Med­i­cine Spe­cial­ist, steps in, not­ing that it is nev­er a one-size-fits-all choice.

“For most healthy adults, mod­er­ate cof­fee is linked with low­er rates of type 2 di­a­betes and heart dis­ease rather than harm, so the use­ful ques­tion is rarely whether cof­fee is ‘good or bad’ in gen­er­al, but whether it suits this par­tic­u­lar per­son,” she ex­plains. “I look at how some­one sleeps, whether they feel jit­tery or anx­ious or get pal­pi­ta­tions, whether it wors­ens re­flux, and whether there are any heart-rhythm con­cerns or preg­nan­cy. Peo­ple al­so metabolise caf­feine at very dif­fer­ent rates, large­ly for ge­net­ic rea­sons, so the same cup can af­fect two peo­ple quite dif­fer­ent­ly.”

Caf­feine, Dr Rag­bir notes, does cause a brief rise in cor­ti­sol, but in reg­u­lar drinkers, the body large­ly adapts, and a short-lived rise is not the same as the sus­tained, stress-dri­ven cor­ti­sol that ac­tu­al­ly caus­es harm.

What’s a healthy amount of cof­fee? “Of­fi­cial guid­ance con­sid­ers up to about 400 mg a day—rough­ly four to five cups of brewed cof­fee —safe for most healthy adults,” she as­serts, adding, “but in prac­tice I tend to sug­gest less, and ear­li­er in the day: no more than two cups, and none af­ter lunch. The half-life runs to sev­er­al hours, so a cof­fee in the af­ter­noon can still leave a mean­ing­ful amount in your sys­tem at bed­time, where it erodes sleep qual­i­ty.”

What’s in your cup?

What we add to the brew de­fines the en­tire ex­pe­ri­ence. In lo­cal kitchens, a heavy hand with con­densed milk or brown sug­ar is stan­dard prac­tice, whether sweet­en­ing a dark roast or a hot mug of co­coa tea.

Ac­cord­ing to Dr Rag­bir, “The main thing that erodes cof­fee’s ben­e­fits is sug­ar—and to a less­er de­gree cream and flavoured syrups—which can turn a ben­e­fi­cial drink in­to some­thing clos­er to a dessert. A splash of milk is fine; any ef­fect on cof­fee’s an­tiox­i­dants is small and not a gen­uine health con­cern.”

For any­one prac­tis­ing in­ter­mit­tent fast­ing, a black cup is es­sen­tial­ly calo­rie-free and won’t mean­ing­ful­ly dis­rupt the process. Just keep it com­plete­ly bare un­til it is time to eat.

Ex­plore the back­yard

If you sim­ply want to di­ver­si­fy your morn­ing palate, most back­yards hold an abun­dance of flavour­ful, caf­feine-free al­ter­na­tives that have an­chored lo­cal break­fast ta­bles for aeons:

● Fever Grass (Lemon­grass): Known for its bright, clean, cit­rusy aro­ma, this is a sta­ple morn­ing tea that pairs per­fect­ly with a hot bake or toast.

● Bay Leaf: Earthy, warm and fra­grant, it of­fers a com­fort­ing, spiced essence straight from the es­tate to the mug.

● Sour­sop Leaf: A pop­u­lar choice, val­ued for its smooth, dis­tinct char­ac­ter that makes it an ex­cel­lent, sooth­ing brew.

● Co­coa Tea: Tra­di­tion­al lo­cal co­coa fat or grat­ed co­coa sticks, brewed slow­ly with a stick of spice or a dash of nut­meg, pro­vide the per­fect rich, vel­vety hot drink with­out the caf­feine jit­ters.

Ul­ti­mate­ly, what goes in­to your mug re­mains a high­ly per­son­al de­ci­sion. When it comes to de­cid­ing whether to stay loy­al to the lo­cal roast or head out to the back­yard gar­den, Aba leaves it en­tire­ly to the read­er.

“I did what works for me, do what works for you,” she says. “Free­dom of choice is God’s gift to every­one. Your heart al­ways speaks to you.”