Well, today was a long time coming.
I’m a coffee drinker. However, for health reasons, I only drink decaffeinated coffee. Some people might wonder why I would do so, but the simple fact is that I like the taste, plus being warm it helps wake me up in the morning. Being a decaf coffee drinker has its drawbacks, though, especially in the workplace. Usually, I end up being the only one who needs the decaf coffee.
At my last job, the IT department had its own contract through Community Coffee, and my boss had no problem with ordering decaf coffee for me. Once I left there and came to my current job, I found that I was the only decaf drinker, and the fact it was a smaller company and didn’t have the huge coffeemakers my last job did meant I was essentially out in the cold. I brought in my own coffeemaker, and started buying my own coffee.
A month or two after I started here, though, one of my former coworkers at the last job let me know that the CIO had said that as no one else was going to be drinking the decaf coffee, I was welcome to what remained. On my lunch break a day or two later, I went back there and picked up their remaining decaf coffee. It was about five or six boxes worth, which in the past would have lasted me a few months. Each box contained bags of coffee; each bag was good for one oversized carafe of coffee. As I was using a normal household coffeemaker, I didn’t quite need as much for each carafe. A few times since, I’ve supplemented it with the very occasional (as in, once a year) bag of Rouses Coffee or Cafe Du Monde.
That was well over three years ago. This morning, I used the very last of that Community coffee.
In that time, I’ve since replaced the standard coffeemaker with a small Keurig machine, but have still used the Community coffee with a My K-Cup reusable cup/filter unit. Now that I’m done with the leftover Community, though, I really don’t have any intention of switching to regular K-cups. I can get better coffee by going to local places like House of Coffee Beans or Pearland Coffee Roasters, and it will probably be cheaper overall than using the disposable K-cups. While I’ve only had House of Coffee Beans coffee once or twice, I have had Pearland Coffee Roasters coffee several times (at Killen’s Steakhouse), and have found it to be fantastic.
Still, it’s a bit bittersweet losing that supply of coffee that at one time looked like it was going to be infinite. I now have an “emergency” stash of Donut House Decaf K-cups at my desk, and this weekend I’ll probably get the Pearland Coffee Roasters stuff. I guess it’s time for me to get used to bringing coffee in on a regular basis. :-)