A cup that doesn't ask so much of me
My mother used to say that too much coffee makes a person sharp in the wrong way, quick to snap, quick to regret it. I didn't believe her until I had two children and a coffee habit that had crept up to three cups by lunchtime, and found myself sharp in exactly the way she meant.
A friend at the school gate mentioned mushroom coffee, which sounded strange enough that I almost didn't ask what she meant. It's instant coffee blended with lion's mane, chaga, and a few other mushrooms I couldn't have named before this, lower in caffeine than the usual jar, and it dissolves the same way any instant coffee does, straight into hot water.
"It still tastes like coffee," my mother said, suspicious, the first time she tried my cup. Coming from her that was practically an endorsement.
I won't pretend I feel transformed by it. What I notice is smaller and steadier than that. The afternoon crash that used to send me reaching for a fourth cup doesn't arrive the same way, and I've swapped that fourth cup for this one instead, most days. It has an earthy note underneath the coffee taste, not unpleasant, closer to how a good dark roast already tastes than anything mushroom-adjacent I feared.
I make mine slightly weaker than the packet suggests, and stir it into warm oat milk rather than water. It rounds out the earthiness and tastes more like the flat whites I used to queue for, a few moves ago, in a life that had queues for such things.
Two pouches came in the box, which sounds like a lot until you're making one cup most mornings and realize it lasts the better part of two months. Long enough to know it's a real habit and not a passing curiosity from the school gate.
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