Diary: Cloudy Day

[degringolade]

At least the weather isn't all that bad. Lately the temps have been >100 F and despite my knees not hurting (cold makes them ache) temps that high are unpleasant for this particular fat old man.

The complaint today that I wish to register is the price of coffee. A year ago, I bought my cheap american-ground coffee (yuban or maxwell house) for $9.00 for over 40 ounces. Now the same container only holds 38 ounces and costs $23.00 (both prices rounded down to dollars).

Now, I hate to say it, this means I need to change my behavior to conform with current realities. I suppose that I have seen this coming for a while now, having noticed and written about the fact that 98+ percent of our coffee is imported even back in the days of my Blogger account. So my thoughts are that I will need to switch to tea for my morning caffeine fix.

I knew that this was coming. That foreknowledge doesn't make it one damn bit better, So I will take this time to share my feelings (here in my world, this is referred to as "bitching"). Surprisingly, I am not all that annoyed about this turn of affairs. I will adapt to this inconvenience by drinking coffee on the weekends and tea on the weekdays.

My tea will be of the "not snooty pooty" variety. I have always felt that emotionally linking your foodstuffs to your self image is a fools game. So I go to Wally world or out on the big wide web and buy myself bulk tea (a brand called Tea India). Two pounds for around $14.00 delivered. Now, this seems expensive at first glance, but for coffee in my 1.5 liter french press is is a minimum of three scoops (2 tablespoons) and the tea is 1-1/2 scoops for 1.5 liters.

Now, this isn't the last adaptation I will need to make in my life. Things like coffee and tea are imports that won't go away and while I half approve of the tariffs of imported stuff we really could without, the fact is that I really like some of the little luxuries that I might well have to do without.

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Quantatative update

[degringolade]

OK: Since I am a "measurement" kinda guy, I thought that I would update those of you whose poor time management skills leads you to this blog.

Weight of bulk tea (Tea India as stated above) required for 1.5 liters of morning caffeine: 0.5 ounces. 2 pounds (32 ounces) of said tea from wally world ran me $14.99. Mathematics tells me that I get 64 days worth of morning caffeine for $0.23.

Weight of coffee grounds for morning caffeine (again 1.5 liters) is 1.4 ounces. Yuban/Maxwell House for 38.2 ounces at $23.44 works out to be 27 days costing me $1.00 a day.

To completely appall those among us with good taste, the tea also only requires 2 tablespoons of coffee mate (a am laughing at the shudders. Since I currently use 4 tablespoons per 1.5 liters. Though it does add a tablespoon of sugar for the 1.5 liters (I can't imagine tea without sugar).

Pennies make nickels make dimes. Coffee at current prices costs me $23 a month more than tea.