Hmm. Not sure the two cups of relatively strong coffee was a good idea. :/
@Angle Oh dear... if you're not trying to fight through tolerance, one cup, max. Honestly you're better off with tea.
@KawaSeadrake Hmm, gotcha. XD
@Angle Yea. I go through about 3-4 worth on average, but that's also from the perspective of habituation and... ok lets face it, addiction, lol
@Angle If your coffe is strong, one cup (not expresso size neither a mug eh) each 3-4 hours may take you up.
@Angle This depends on how sensitive you are. start low and work your way up.
You may also be interested in brewing yerba mate instead as it also increases focus, but tends to not cause jitters or nerves. I do find it dehydrating, though.
@Angle The short answer is that the less you drink coffee, or any drug like it, the better and more effective each dose is going to be.
I generally try to drink exactly one cup, but it's a fairly potent cup of stovetop espresso so. I also recommend consuming with food to make sure the acidity doesn't upset your stomach, and that the caffeine doesn't interact with feelings of low blood sugar or w/e.
@Ratttz I hardly ever drink coffee, so I think the two cups was definitely too much. XD
@Angle I have never found coffee to be a good choice for that. Tea is gentler for the same effect c.c
@Angle Titrate to minimum effective dosage. If coffee provokes unpleasant side effects, try weaker stuff. Tea, dark chocolate even, green tea...
@Angle Espresso has less caffeine than drip coffee so I usually prefer it if I can get it (also it's tastier to me). Also, sometimes light roast will make me super jittery but the same amount of dark roast is fine and sometimes too weak. Usually I do one cup of coffee in the morning then titrate with tea in the afternoon/night.
1 espresso to start with till you determine your caffeine sensitivity.
Maybe an americano (an espresso diluted in water) to spread it out.
if you don't dig the taste, try tea (yerba mate is even more of an acquired taste but will make you many friends in Argentina)
Don't sweat it too much as caffeine is something you build AND un-build a tolerance to quickly. After about 2 weeks of no coffee your brain will be back to being like you never drank it:
@Angle With coffee, especially if not used to it, it's sort of trial and error. Once went off caffeine for couple of months then has three cups and was absolutely flying. wouldn't even notice that now.
@Angle
Do like Tim Horton's: always use 18% cream. Can't fail ;-)
@gemlog I used about 30% milk and a whole lot of sugar. XD
@gemlog Tasted good, but I'm not sure that made it any better for me. :/
Not to put too fine a point on it, but using 1/3 milk by volume in a recipe isn't the same as including *any* amount of 18% fat cream.
Milk is like 1% or 2% or 3.75% cream.
18% cream is far more serious business!! :-)
@gemlog Hmm, fair enough. I don;t think we *have* any cream though, so milk and sugar is what I had to settle for. What about vanilla ice cream, how does that compare? XD
@Angle I haven't the foggiest notion on that score -- I don't like sweets very much (yes, my kids make fun of me).
I'm not super used to coffee. Any advice on how much is usually enough to improve focus and productivity without leaving one jittery and nervous? :/