Today’s article in the Times brought me unexpected medical validation.
According to learned people with graphs and charts, two to three cups of coffee a day may help keep dementia at bay.
I read it slowly, reverently, the way one reads a verdict of acquittal.
Then I smiled the smile of a man who has been right all along.
For years my three cups of morning coffee have been treated by family members as a character flaw. Not a habit. Not a preference. A flaw.
There are concerned looks, raised eyebrows, gentle lectures delivered while I am still half asleep, putting the powder into the coffee machine and therefore defenceless. “Do you really need another cup?” they ask, as though I am reaching for contraband.
I always found this odd. Nobody asks a man brushing his teeth for the third time whether he really needs to do so, do they?
But today, armed with science, I felt vindicated. I imagined announcing the news at breakfast like a press conference. ‘Coffee,’ I would say, ‘is no longer indulgence. It is preventive medicine. This is not addiction. This is responsibility. I am not drinking coffee for pleasure. I am drinking it for my brain.’
The article did not mention the joy of coffee. It spoke only of dementia. That is how modern science works. It cannot say coffee makes life bearable before 8 am. It must say coffee delays cognitive decline.
But my coffee and I know the truth. Coffee does not merely protect memory. It gives one a life worth protecting. Those three cups, and I hastily add, among other things, makes my life worth living.
My first cup is spiritual. It restores faith in the morning.
The second is social. It allows me to acknowledge other human beings and irritating noises from my neighbour’s house, without growling.
The third is philosophical. By then I am capable of deep thoughts like why the finance minister raised taxes on coffee, and why taxes on liquor have come down. Does the nation want more alcoholics or hasn’t the finance minister noticed a mild, gentle person like me, sedated with three cups of the divine brew?
Of course, I know how all this will end.
Tomorrow there will be another study. They’ll find out that coffee causes something else. Heart palpitations. Existential fog. Excessive opinions. And the same family members will slide the newspaper across the table and say, “See? We told you.”
But today belongs to me. Today, science and I are on the same side of the table. Today, my coffee cup is not a symbol of excess but of wisdom and foresight.
And if I forget where I kept my glasses later this evening, it will have nothing to do with coffee. It will be because someone hid them to make a point.
Until then, pass the kettle. My brain depends on it…!
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