37 Yen Coffee, How Bad Can It Be?

I am not a coffee drinker.

I tried y'know, I really did. But alas, it is not the drink for me.

Unfortunately my parents, in-laws, colleagues and most of my students all love coffee. Until recently I was getting my energy through caffeine pills, Monster energy drinks and power-metal blaring through my headphones loud enough that my phone starts sending me health warnings.

This was giving me no small amount of anxiety.

It was giving me no regular amount of anxiety.

It was giving me a large amount of anxiety.

Given that I don't like having anxiety, it seemed prudent to move to something that wasn't going to give me the disposition of a Golden Retreiver who's heard the word "dog park" and not a Greyhound that's heard ... well any word at all frankly.

That was when I went into my local supermarket and found individual cans of cold coffee for 37 yen each (plus tax).

So I figured, what the Hell! Let's buy one of each, try one each day and see what they do to my body!

Tuesday - Black Coffee

I decided to start with the one I knew I wouldn't like.

One of my very first teaching jobs was doing 1-1 tutoring for a guy from Syria at his house. His dad would give me a little cup of espresso when I came over. Knowing I wasn't a coffee drinker, but not wanting to be rude I just drank it in one shot.

Which made his dad think either "This guy must really like coffee," or "This guy must be tired,". The end result was him bringing out more and more coffee and me beginning to vibrate on the bus back into town while I brainstormed polite ways to decline coffee.

I figured this would taste much the same way, incredibly bitter but giving me a weird sense of confidence and determination as well as the energy to keep on trucking for a few hours.

Gang, this wasn't what happened. I cracked the can open at 9:04 on a Tuesday before doing some speaking exams and almost immediately regretted taking a sip. It turned out that heat was something that made the bitterness bearable, I took a gulp down and immediately regretted it.

Some people like black coffee, I am not one of them. I like something that is sweet, flavourful and this tasted like spite in a can. It felt heavy every time I picked up the can to take another sip, determined to not throw it away so I could get the most out of my 37 yen.

Halfway through the can I had decided I wasn't buying the black coffee again unless I wanted to make myself suffer. However, unlike the other coffees that I could drink without shuddering, this one kept me the most awake for the longest. Albeit, I think that was because I kept putting it aside and only taking sips every time I felt myself flagging instead of drinking it over the course of a few minutes ...

Wednesday - Regular Coffee

I was drinking most of these coffees at 9:00 in the morning after walking up a gigantic hill and having an amount of sleep that would make the average human being wince in pain.

So, I feel like I was cheating a little with the regular coffee. I start work later than usual on Wednesday, so I can have a lie in, psyche myself up for the horror of being alive. By the time I got into class and cracked the can open it was past noon and I was well-awake.

The coffee made sure I stayed well awake. I didn't feel an effect during the lesson, but after it I just stayed awake and focused. I got a lot of marking done, I got a lot of homework queued up and my energy levels stayed at 100%

My focus levels were a different matter, I couldn’t spend more than about 30 minutes on any one task. Switching from marking one homework task to another whenever I got bored, which means I now have several piles of work where half the students have been graded and half haven’t.

I don’t know if it’s because of the time I drank the coffee or what but it made me brain feel like I couldn’t focus. Now I have a bigger to-do list than when I started with…

Thursday - Slightly Sweet

I thought this coffee was the worst

I expected something that claimed to say "slight sugar" in kanji (and no my Japanese hasn't improved, I had to use Google Translate) to be sweet. It didn't taste like sweet coffee though, it tasted like the regular red coffee and then I got an aftertaste of sugar, at one point I even swore I felt the granules in my mouth.

Maybe I'm going nuts? Maybe I was just having a bad day, Thursday is the busiest day for me, but it just felt ... plain. Boring.

Fine.

But I'd legitimately rather have the black coffee than this one. At least that tasted of something ... even if that something was pain.

Friday- Cafe Latte

Friday is my least busy day. I don't have any classes, but I still like to come in early and get a good start on work. Y'know, maximise that time for prepping classes, grading homework and writing my own papers. But, and I'm sure most of you can relate to this, sometimes the days where you have plenty of time to do everything can be your least productive.

I figured, that a quick sip of something weaker than the darkest, blackest coffee imaginable might be the perfect balance to get me actually doing work instead of thinking about work. I cracked open the can, took a sip and realised "Oh God I'm a basic bitch,".

I mean we knew that. Listen to me. Better yet, go and read some of the other articles I've written here.

As far as I can tell Cafe Latte is more milk than it is coffee but it's very sweet, almost chocolatey, and for someone like me with a sweet tooth it's a good balance for me between tasting nice and having a good amount of caffeine to keep me going. I think this is the one, basic or no, this is the perfect kind of coffee for me.

Hence why I've gone and bought a whole pallet of them from the supermarket.

... followed by three energy drinks.

Old habits die hard.