Not that you have to. I'd just like to.
I currently drink about 300 calories a day in coffee creamer spread between 3 cups of coffee. This is tapered down from 420 calories a day. My coffee is my little hug throughout the day.
It's not so much the sweet that I need (I can use sweeteners for that), it's the cream to "soften" the coffee taste.
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Get a good coffee. You may have to experiment with what "good" means to you. There are coffees with "fruity" notes, ones that are more "chocolately," varying degrees of bitterness, lower acid coffees. You can get lighter roasts and super dark roasts. The tasting notes on bags can be kind of pretentious, but they're usually a good guide as to what to expect. If you're buying pre-ground, grinding your own can make a big difference in the final cup (and it doesn't have to be expensive -- my basic grinder was about fifteen dollars, I think). If you're absolutely clueless about what you might like, buying a cup of coffee at a coffee shop and drinking it black can give you a good baseline as to what you might want to explore (a good coffee shop will tell you what you're drinking so you can look it up later).
Now that I'm used to it, I can drink gas station coffee black. But making the switch with genuinely delicious coffee really helped.
I think the key is brewing high quality coffee and drinking it fresh and HOT. I grind whole beans every morning and like the robust flavor of percolated coffee. I use a wee bit of half & half and carefully measure EVERY time - one T per 12 oz. mug. I am down to fewer than 90 calories a day now for creamer. It used to be 300!
One added benefit I've noticed is how much longer my coffee stays hot when it doesn't have creamer in it. Now on the odd occasion I do whiten my coffee I feel like I need to heat it up!
Thanks! How long did it take for you to get used to it going cold turkey like that? I don't have a grinder, but I've noticed when I grind the beans at the store (some places have that machine) I enjoy my coffee much more.
Often I'm just grabbing Keurig coffee-- which I don't LOVE but it's fast. However, I just bought an actual coffee pot-- so this is a good time to make a switch!
Wow! That's great. What do you recommend for when you are out and about? I drink 2 cups of my coffee at work-- they have a Keurig. So good coffee would be easy first thing in the morning, but later in the day may be more difficult.
My wife kept good quality whole beans in her house and ground fresh daily. It took me a bit of experimentation to find my preferences...as @janejellyroll stated, there's quite a bit of variety. Roasting wise, I prefer a medium roast for everyday drinking and it's nothing too expensive...we've been enjoying First Colony Rainforest Blend lately, which we get from Costco. We also get smaller batches from a local roaster down the road for more special occasions and/or to try stuff out. With a dark roast, I still usually take 1/2 and 1/2 or milk as I find a dark roast to be pretty bitter.
It also helped that my wife wasn't really much into dairy...the only time she had any kind of creamer or milk on hand was when she was using it specifically for some kind of recipe that required it...so when I stayed over (which was a lot), I was usually SOL on the creamer or milk front anyway, and I never put sugar in my coffee.
Back in the spring of 2016 we visited Colombia SA and spent some time in Cartagena as well as Medellin. While in Medellin we toured a coffee plantation up in the rainforest and got to see how it was all done and sampled some of the best coffee I've ever had in my life...milk or creamer a big no no and offensive.
I also think coffee made in a percolator is the absolute best and is what we use camping...at home we do drip, we've been toying with the idea of an electric percolator.
I wish I could remember! It must not have been that long since it doesn't stand out in my mind as a lengthy adjustment (I did this about six years ago).
Since I have 4 cups a day, I have to budget for the extra 130kcals. I've flirted with dropping the agave, but it makes me sad.
I'll give cold turkey a try for a week and see how it goes.
This is such good advice!! I started drinking coffee at my summer job in high school. It was an early shift at a food counter. I stayed up too late always, and then needed something to get going in the morning. I started out with cream and sugar, then tapered down to just cream, then less cream and then finally to black. And just like the quote above, I can drink gas station coffee black. Ha!
I take a thermos of home coffee to work with me. My first 12oz cup has 1-2 tbsp of half and half, the thermos is black and provided the next 2 12oz cups. We grind our own beans, grocery store brand, mixed half hazelnut, half medium-dark roast.
I'll second all the advice to buy good, whole beans and grind them yourself. I love my French press and the coffee it makes; my Aeropress is a close second.
I don't see it here yet, so I'll also add: if your gas station/diner/break room coffee is too bitter, a tiny pinch of salt will take that edge off without adding calories like sugar/creamer would. Not a lot, maybe half or less of one of the little salt packets you get at restaurants, or a quick tip of a saltshaker into your palm. Err on the side of not enough salt, for sure.