You come back from lunch with a hot cup of coffee. On your desk is a partially imbibed cup of coffee from earlier in the morning. Question: should you finish the first cup before starting in on the second?
Answer: No. You should drink the hot cup while it is still hot. You can drink the morning cup, later -- it's not going anywhere, and it won't be appreciably cooler.
Do otherwise, and you're setting yourself up for disappointment later on.
Posted by cradle at October 5, 2004 12:08 AMIf you should feel at any time that you are either obligated to drink coffee that is cold, or would in any way benefit from drinking coffee that is cold, then you should pay attention to this very clear sign that your life is very far from healthily balanced.
Posted by: Anonymous at October 6, 2004 12:33 AMActually forget that last bit.
Coffee IS hot. If you find a beverage on your desk that is lukewarm or tepid, it is not coffee anymore. I mean, there is iced coffee, which a perfectly nice confectionary beverage, but it is not COFFEE. Because coffee is hot.
Coffee is important to all humans who want to live fully in this reality we have painted for ourselves around us. Coffee is not completely tangible; it requires good beans, yes, ground to the proper grain and infused with boiling water, yes. But Coffee is a also a numinous qualityy of being, a Platonic elixir that infuses some cups of this stuff, and only for as long as it is the correct temperature.
For instance, did you know that you cannot obtain Coffee from Starbucks? You may not have known this. There is a twofold reason for this, like the Yin and Yang of the Tao, the baryonic and dark matter of the universe: Starbucks is a corporation that lacks a soul on the one hand, but on the other, they roast their beans too dark, and as any Coffee adept will tell you, the more darkly roasted a coffee bean is, the less caffeine it has.
It can't just be the caffeine in the coffee...there must be other alkalines in their, things like caffeine but not quite, which combine in a certain way to bring a bouquet of rosey ring-shaped molecules into the brain. I suspect these structures break down as the temperature subsides.
I quit drinking coffee this summer because I can't afford decent beans anymore, and it has been a truely horrifying experience. I swear. I'd explain what I mean but you would not be able to handle it.
Posted by: cliff at October 6, 2004 12:43 AMWhat you can also do is MIX THE TWO!!!! That way you won't be drinking a cold drink at any point.
Posted by: kan at October 6, 2004 12:33 PM