OT: A latte after two weeks without

For the past couple of weeks, I have been better than usual at not consuming caffeine.  The only time I had any was in the form of a chocolate-coated marshmallow that had less chocolate than a fun size Aero.

Today, I was less than good about it, and grabbed a latte at a local espresso bar.  While yummy, it correlates with when a headache started.  And when wanting a burger turned into maybe a salad, which turned into barely able to keep down a smoothie.  I think I'll stick with being better at not drinking the stuff (argh, no more of the hot chocolates at my local chocolate makers).  Perhaps it's time to head home until this finishes.  Actually, I won't.  Stuff to do, and it seems like the sunglasses I recently relocated help cut down on the hurtiness of it all.

(and because I didn't do the sensible thing and be miserable at home, I got to watch the train I initially got on couple itself to one that broke down and shunt it away)

Why do parents try to get their kids hooked on this stuff through Ice Caps and the like, when they would never give them regular coffee or lattes because they contain caffeine?  (according to a page on the Timmy's website, small Ice Caps contain more caffeine than a small coffee (90mg vs 80mg of caffeine)

tetragon wrote:
Why do parents try to get their kids hooked on this stuff through Ice Caps

So that is in Canada also?

I see kids as young as 5 or 6 with their parents in line at the grocery store with a 20-ounce bottle of Mountain Dew (90 mg caffeine) in their hands. Not to mention all the sugar and carbonated water which is corrosive to the teeth.

It is a shame.

The Choker wrote: I see kids as young as 5 or 6 with their parents in line at the grocery store with a 20-ounce bottle of Mountain Dew (90 mg caffeine) in their hands. Not to mention all the sugar and carbonated water which is corrosive to the teeth.

Last I checked, Mountain Dew doesn't have any caffeine in it, although this is Canada. Up until recently there were restrictions on which pops and sodas could contain caffeine.

I'm curious - what is an Ice Cap?

I never kept soda in the house so my son didn't develop a taste for it. He did go through a Red Bull stage when he started college, but it didn't last. I know a lot of people do drink them though.

Now you've got me wanting a latte but when I get them, I order them no-fun (skim milk, decaf, no sweetening). I know, I know, what's the point of it then?

I hope you feel better soon - caffeine headaches are definitely "no-fun."

RocketGirl wrote:I'm curious - what is an Ice Cap?

A frozen coffee slush. http://www.timhortons.com/ca/en/menu/sp ... rages.html

Regular Mountain Dew in the States has caffeine, but they sell caffeine-free, sometimes hard to find.
Diet, caffeine free anything is so scarce I usually drink tap water when eating out.
I heard of a sign posted somewhere warning parents to watch their kids.
The sign said that unaccompanied children would be given espresso and a kitten.

I did it again. Why must they make the caffeinated lattes so tasty. If they tasted like the decaf one I tried ages ago (bitter, with an aftertaste of evil), I wouldn't have any problem with not drinking them. Yet again with a headache, although this time I went straight home and I got it to stop, but stopping the headache didn't stop the fizzy-headedness I'm feeling. And no, I didn't just mistype "fuzzy", I did mean "fizzy". I know that all I can do is wait it out, but the fizzy feeling is annoying. Fizz, fizz, fizz, like the feeling of carbonation up the nose over all my head.

Once again I have what seems to be becoming my weekly latte headache. This sucks, but the different decaf espressos I've tried just don't taste as good. Although, I did just learn something that may be contributing to the problem. The place I've been going to uses double shots. Even when I had multiple lattes in a day, I normally didn't have anything more than a single, and those singles were spaced a few hours apart.

Complain loudly about the decaf taste. There is absolutely no reason for it to taste bad. They are using cheap or expired old coffee to make the decaf lattes. Good quality Swiss water decaffeinated fresh ground coffee tastes exactly like the equivalently roasted fresh ground regular coffee.

There is a difference between "bad" and "not as good". I've had decaf in both categories, and last time it was bad, I did complain, which resulted in the person who pulled the shot to try some for himself and he agreed that it tasted bitter with an aftertaste of evil. My most recent occasion of not as good, the person I ordered it from made it, along with the offer to replace it with my usual cider if I didn't like it. Part of the problem is that quite a few of the roasters seem to develop one decaf roast, but then make multiple tastier ones with caffeine, quite likely due to the majority of the people preferring to have caffeine in it.

Decaf Skinny Latte a/k/a a Why Bother. My usual drink. Why bother? It's better than nothing when hubby & I hit the local coffee haus.

When I go to places that use the term "skinny" to refer to that nasty substance that can't even get a decent texture (skim milk), I tend to go for an espresso-free candy drink, aka a flavoured steamer. But not with skim. The taste and texture of homogenized is much nicer, and it is unfortunate that so many places have switched to 2%.