I wrote this post in 2005. It reads super-pretentious to me now LOL. Though I still like that DIY mocha because it’s easy and doable with just about any coffee you have on hand.

These days, we do have another espresso machine, courtesy of our daughter who once worked as an honest-to-goodness barista at Tahosa Coffee House in Colorado. We’ve never been there, but here at home we’ve been treated often to her yummy creations. Yah, we’re spoiled that way.

Hubby and I, however, do a pour-over most days, using a Kalita Wave with a paper filter, because we’ve learned that filtering through paper can lower LDL cholesterol, and we’re at the age when we need to pay attention to those things.

I now drink mostly decaf, or half-caff. Hubby still prefers full caff more often than not. We’ve tried Fiat, Atlas Coffee Club, Fresh Roasted Coffee, and Dekaf subscriptions. I don’t have a favorite, so far we’ve been happy with everything we’ve received.

As for cream and sugar, we’ve gone back and forth through the years, and we were using a stevia-erythritol blend for quite a while, but are now trying other things and even switching occasionally to raw sugar, or maple syrup, or whatever natural sweetener we have around, because apparently erythritol isn’t good for you. There’s a stevia extract I used to get all the time; maybe we’ll try it again.

We can’t have oat milk or almond milk now either, which we were using all the time until a few months ago. So it’s soy milk for us. We like West Life because it doesn’t have a long list of additives. And I like that it ups my breakfast protein just like that, along with collagen. I do miss half-and-half. When I miss mocha I dump everything with a huge spoonful of cocoa powder into my VitaMix and it comes out foamy and deeply chocolaty which is exactly how I like it. Of course, salt and vanilla are still de rigueur.