Can One have Too Much Coffee - Yes Indeed!

I realize everyone's metabolism is different, so asking when is too much when drinking coffee is really personal, but I have to share my crazy day yesterday with someone...may as well be you. I'm working on a project about independent coffee houses in Halifax - not Tim Hortons, Starbucks or Second Cup. In my "support local"frame of mind, I thought this would be fun. Totally personal bias, nothing scientific. I just drop into small coffee shops that I've either heard about or pass by and think..."cool"...where I can actually sit down and take in the flavor - no pun intended - of the shop as well as the coffee.

One thing Halifax has lots of are little coffee shops, perhaps it's all the university students...not sure, but I'm glad they're here. And now on to my drama....

I take my Honey to work in the mornings and he does leave very early - always in before 7 and usually we just do a "Tim's run" -there's a Tim Hortons drive through just down the street from his office and it's open 24 hours. But for my "research", we decided to do something together and have a coffee for him, cappuccino for me at some independent place. The problem is that many don't open until 11am, and the earliest we found was still closed until 7:30.

Not easily discouraged, we went to Chez Cora for a real breakfast...bacon & eggs with toast and coffee. They open at 6am! And after a tasty breakfast and a big cup of coffee, I kissed him goodbye and headed off to do more research. By this time, Ciboulette was open and I was excited to check it out. After all, Chef Craig Flinn is the owner (and I love his stuff - restaurant and book Fresh & Local), plus my Honey told me that the muffins are "to die for"...and it's true. So...one big cappuccino, a cranberry & orange muffin (I wish I had another one right now) and a flip through his new cookbook that looks wonderful.

Still feeling fine, so I thought I'd try Uncommon Grounds, there's one right around the corner. This time I just ordered a medium roast Mexican blend of coffee to go. I could have stayed, there are tables, but I just took a few sips and headed out the door.
I should have gotten in the car and gone home....but that would have been sensible, and why would I want to do that! Right at the end of the street, was The Paperchase Newsstand & Cafe. I remember it from when my older daughter went to Dalhousie University and lived just up the hill from it. She would take me there often when I'd visit. It's still there in all its glory more than fifteen years later, so I HAD to check it out....well,didn't I? The cappuccino savored first in front of the fireplace and then in the back on a big comfy couch, was one of the best I've had anywhere.
The photo at the top of the page is from one of my favorite coffee haunts...The Trident Booksellers & Cafe. (I was there just the day before.) It brings out the writer in me. But I digress...

This post is not about the coffee shops really, or even which coffee I liked best. It's about what happened next. I started feeling hyper the second I walked in the door. So hyper in fact, I couldn't concentrate on any ONE thing. I started three different posts and articles, started to organize my kitchen, threw in a load of laundry, back to one of the posts, but couldn't concentrate on that...came up with three new ideas, remembered the cookbooks I had to write about and tried to figure out which dishes to try.

I'm not sure if you can tell by my writing style, but I'm still speedy today. When I was talking on the phone to my daughters yesterday, they found it very funny...me talking so fast they could hardly understand me....not able to actually finish one thought or make more than one sentence stick together. But at this end of the phone, it didn't feel very funny. I have come to understand what it must be like to suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and it's no joke.

As for me, I'll just lay off the coffee for a few days, the shaky hands will still, the jumpy thoughts will subside and I'll be fine.