I was realizing how particular and passionate I’ve become about having good water, coffee, and tea. Like buying groceries compared to getting takeout, it’s relatively inexpensive, especially relative to most cost-of-living expenses.

With good old H20, we inherited an electric water cooler from my wife’s family, although both had filtered water at home for quite a while. Invariably, the water cooler is used by my wife, and I still prefer drinking our filtered water, since I’m of the unpopular opinion that room temperature water is superior… if it is distilled or filtered, and doesn’t taste like the tap! As Rush says in their song “Vital Signs,” “everybody got to deviate from the norm.”

I grew up drinking 5 gallon distilled water jugs we had delivered, and consumed it at room temperature, which I loved. However, in my college and young adult life, I started enjoying the convenience of filtered water, and find most of it tastes good at room temperature, and has the minerals.

Like many people, I got habituated into drinking coffee once I was an adult, maybe 18 or so. I kind of had this stereotypical idea in my head that once you were an adult, you read the newspaper, had a briefcase, and drank dark roast black coffee. It all just sounded so grown up! Among my first true part-time, “payroll” jobs was working for Einstein Bagels (they were much better when they were Noah’s, before they got bought out). Shifts were very early, and along with bagels, coffee was free for workers. That was probably about the time I slowly turned into a coffee addict.

I’ve always liked the aroma of coffee brewing too, or sticking my snout inside of a coffee bag. It’s one of those scents that is a sensory yes, like anything herbal, such as basil, cilantro, or rosemary. I even like the smell of cannabis flower, for someone who isn’t a pothead. Certain aromas are just nice, much like flipping through a freshly printed hardcover book, or a folding a clean load of laundry.

Tea, on the other hand (unlike coffee), I remember having occasionally as a teenager, but not regularly. Maybe occasionally herbal night-time teas? Like coffee, it just wasn’t something I gave much thought about either way.

However, a couple years ago, our family friend who married my wife and I, had an electric tea kettle with temperature control, when he lived with us. Once he moved out, we decided to buy one, and it was a game changer for no longer boiling tea kettle water and burning my tongue regularly out of impatience. Plus, even the most expensive organic, top-tier, free-range, cage-free, fair-trade-certified tea bags bought at Whole Paycheck weren’t going to break the bank, let alone perfectly good mainstream varieties bought at WinCo. Now, we have a whole kitchen drawer filled with teas, ranging from sleep, immunity, stomach, green, earl grey, loose leaf yerba mate, black, ginger, fennel… you name it! Now, I feel like I can wind down early with sleep teas, and put CBD oil or kava in it and sleep great.

It’s been nice because rather than over caffeinate in the afternoon, I’ll choose tea instead as a middle ground. As someone with a fast metabolism, caffeine, like most drugs I’ve had, hits quicker, and fades quicker. In the case of coffee, it’s fully worn off after 5-6 hours, if even that. So I could have a coffee as late as 3pm, and easily yawn and go to bed by 9pm on a work night. I can have a coffee with dinner on the night of a concert or staying out late and sleep just fine.

With coffee however, I’ve enjoyed black coffee in a typical coffee maker for a long time. However, my wife was interested in trying out a Moka Pot for brewing espresso at home on the stovetop to make homemade lattes a couple years ago, without paying cafe prices. It literally felt like the coffee equivalent of buying beer at the store vs. paying at the bar. It was nice for a very long time, and only cost $30 or so for a Moka Pot. Switching to espressos for my wife, I realized how having oat milk, honey, and espresso was easier on my stomach, and tasted nice. Plus it was saving us money from going out to buy lattes. However, like an stovetop kettle, the espresso will boil over and burn really fast. So you have to be careful.

So later, we invested in a Breville Bambino espresso machine, with no plastic parts that have hot water. A good quality, simple, entry level unit, and a precision grinder with a timer, and it’s been awesome. No burnt espresso, brews quickly, and can steam oat milk. It feels like one of those lifestyle luxuries, where once you have it, it’d be hard to ever go back. However, if you are thinking about become a regular tea or espresso person at home, an electric tea kettle and espresso machine are definite nice-to-haves.