Lupin coffee as a coffee alternative

18. August 2023. The next morning, I was awakened by a mailman. Quickly, I put on some pants and looked for my T-shirt, only to find out it had been washed along with another T-shirt. Determined, I opened the door, standing shirtless in front of the mailman. It felt a bit odd, but he behaved as if I were wearing a T-shirt.

Then, shirtless, I hurried to the basement to fetch my T-shirts, which were still wet. As I returned shirtless, my new young neighbor was standing at the top of the stairs, asking if I had accepted a package for her. We stared at each other for a moment. "No," I said, "it was the package for those upstairs." She also reacted quite normally.

I pondered this incident a bit longer on the balcony with a second cup of spelt coffee, hoping to rid myself of the headache likely caused by caffeine withdrawal. I wondered: Is it actually healthy to be naked? To sleep naked? To spend everyday life naked? It would definitely be advantageous to sleep without a T-shirt in the summer because it wouldn't absorb sweat, as it did yesterday, and wouldn't start to smell. The armpits could be better ventilated at night, and thus, I reasoned, they should smell less.

When my mother returned for lunch after a brief shopping trip, I asked her to buy a pack of lupine coffee at the organic store. Allegedly, it should taste similar to real coffee but contain no caffeine. Maybe it could also convince my mother and Tobi because they found spelt coffee disgusting. The advantage of sweet lupine coffee was that it was even more sustainable than spelt coffee since the lupine nourished the soil. Also, unlike coffee, it was alkaline, which might counteract my hair loss. I immediately started heating the water to try the lupine coffee. As I poured it into Mama's and my cup, it foamed surprisingly much on the surface. Underneath the brown, frothy consistency was a pitch-black liquid. It didn't smell like coffee, but at least not like fish. We first tried the lupine coffee without oat milk.

I took a sip. "Hmm, doesn't taste as bitter as real coffee."

Mama also tried it. "Hmm, tastes interesting."

I shook the oat milk carton and poured it into Mama's and my cup. Then, I took another sip. "Mmm. Tastes much better. I like it more than spelt coffee," I said excitedly.

Mama tried again. Her expression wasn't as enthusiastic. "Tastes better than spelt coffee, but not as good as coffee."

After this taste test, I set off for Hannover again.