Morning Coffee and the Writing Process: More Than Just Caffeine

Writer with coffee

They say old habits die hard. I’d have to agree. Some habits find you early in life. Thanks to the many mornings spent in my grandparents’ kitchen and countless breakfasts with my great-aunt, I discovered coffee. I’d already discovered a love of writing early in life, so the rest, I guess you could say, is history.

I couldn’t have been over ten or eleven years old. I was spending the day with my grandparents on my dad’s side, and my grandpa said something to me about having a coffee break. Ok, I thought. I figured he was going to have coffee and pour tea or something else for me. Imagine my surprise when he poured two cups of coffee and set one in front of me. That day piqued my interest, but I wasn’t there yet as far as turning it into a ritual. That came much later in life, but thanks to my great-aunt, whom you may have read about if you read my article on baseball fan loyalty, I had plenty more opportunities.

For Aunt Mary, coffee was more than a morning ritual. It was her drink of choice for most meals—yet she had no problems sleeping, which boggles my mind to this day. We used to go out for breakfast every morning that I stayed with her as a kid. I’d say right around the same time as the coffee break with my grandpa, I started partaking in coffee during these breakfast trips as well. I opted for decaf, as Grandpa told me it was the caffeine that supposedly stunted your growth. Oh, how I cringe at that thought now. Regardless of the caffeine content, or lack thereof, it felt like I belonged, and I sometimes think of Aunt Mary when I’m having my morning coffee now despite her being gone almost ten years now.

After a few years away from it, I started drinking coffee again around 2018. My girlfriend at the time was a self-proclaimed coffee addict, and I discovered I missed it. After we split up, I’d considered giving it up again, not wanting to think about her every time I poured a cup. After a while, I said, “This is my ritual. To hell with everyone else.” Unfortunately, this drew the ire of a very important person in my life.

My mom to this day can’t stand the smell of coffee. Early in the pandemic when we were both working from home, she’d come out of her office, see me sitting in the kitchen sipping coffee, and make the same comment.

“Thought I smelled you,” she’d say, wrinkling her nose. It took her bringing up her disdain for the coffee smell for me to realize she was talking about the coffee and not me, but it’s worth a laugh in hindsight. I still find it genuinely funny that something that has become central to my process is something she would happily see banned from any room she occupies. I’ve since made peace with the idea we’ll never agree on that front. Sorry Ma. The coffee stays.

From the Keurig to the Cup That Stuck

When I came back to coffee, we had a Keurig. I can’t recall the exact model, but it worked fine, better than fine actually. It provided everything a first coffee machine should. It was convenient, easy to use, and worked consistently. It came with several Green Mountain coffee pods, and that’s what I drank for a good while to start. I didn’t think of coffee as anything more than a part of the morning routine. I didn’t drink coffee to wake up; it was the other way around. 

But there comes a time when you need more character than convenience with your coffee. I wanted something that felt more like a cup of coffee and less like a pod I put into a machine that just produced something that resembled coffee, so I started shopping around. I found Double Donut coffee first. I was browsing Amazon and found Double Donut was the same price as Green Mountain and the reviews seemed to be better. So, I tried that for a few months. The coffeemaker evolved, and my taste went with it. 

We eventually bought a Kueurig Duo, which was easier for my dad to fill his travel mug for work via the 12-cup carafe. With it came Folgers Classic Roast coffee. Say what you will about Folgers. I’ll defend it to anyone who dismisses it as a grocery store staple. It’s no accident that it’s been on kitchen counters for years before me and will probably be a staple long after I’m gone. It does its job, and it does it honestly. My dad swears by it to this day.

But the cup that has become mine, the one that sits to my right during most morning writing sessions, is Black Rifle Coffee.

Black Rifle is a veteran-owned and founded company, built by people who take their coffee as seriously as they take their service to this country. My grandfather is an Air Force veteran, and my best friend from high school spent a tour at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan as an Army Reserve member. My physical shortcomings prevented me from serving myself, but supporting a veteran-owned company like Black Rifle seems like the next best thing to me. There’s something about the soldier’s mindset that inspires me, something that fits the way I think about my work. Show up, do the work, and don’t make excuses. Simply put, the coffee is good and the company behind it is worth supporting.

More days than not nowadays, there’s a cup of Black Rifle coffee sitting next to my Chromebook before I press a single key. The coffee and my “Keep Calm. It’s Only a First Draft” coffee cup has become as much a part of my process as the Chromebook itself. If you want to check out the cup, I’ll leave a link here. It’s necessary inspiration some days. Just another reason coffee is a big part of my process.

What Coffee Does for the Writing

Coffee has become a huge part of my writing process. I won’t pretend it’s purely chemical, but the caffeine doesn’t hurt. There is real science behind why a cup of coffee sharpens focus and gets the brain going in the morning. For me, however, it’s a little deeper than that. Morning coffee is more of a ritual, one that does not require it to be “morning” for me to partake. As I sit here now, it’s a little after noon on a Thursday, and my coffee ritual is the same. All writers have their rituals, something that is not negotiable, and this is mine. Ritual is something the importance of which we can’t afford to underestimate. 

Ritual is a signal your brain learns to recognize over time. It’s a cue that, in our case, separates ordinary time from writing time. Some writers have music. Some have a specific chair. Still others need complete silence and a closed door. I have coffee. That first cup is a signal to my brain that we’re doing this now. I open the Chromebook, load the day’s document, and that first sip of coffee is like permission, permission to be imperfect, get words on the page before the day’s noise makes an appearance.

There’s also something about the slow pace of enjoying a hot cup of coffee. You can’t rush it. Otherwise you don’t enjoy it. In a life that moves entirely too fast, full of notifications and demands, the slight pause of sipping a cup of coffee is more valuable than it looks on the surface. It’s a few moments where the only thing I’m concerned with is the cup in my hand and the project sitting in front of me. Morning pages, blog posts, the opening line of a short story that may or may not have legs—nearly all of it starts the same way. It’s like that famous sign. “But first, coffee.”

I think about my grandparents and my great-aunt often when I sit down for that first cup of coffee. They weren’t writers, though I’m beginning to think Aunt Mary may have dabbled. But they understood something about an intentional start to the day. They understood something I didn’t when I was younger, the value of a quiet moment of reflection before you take on the world’s demands. I learned this from watching them—even if I didn’t know I was learning. The coffee was just the vehicle. The lesson was about how to begin.

The Progression Was the Point

When I look back at my coffee journey, from the early days with Green Mountain to the current mornings with Black Rifle, and the stop at Folger’s in between, I don’t look at it as a series of steps up. I look at it as just another process. In the same way my writing has evolved, so too has my taste in coffee and the routine that includes it. 

Green Mountain was the starter. Easy, accessible, and no barriers. Double Donut was the first sign of developing preferences. Folger’s was the classic, the opportunity to appreciate the simplicity of a staple brand and that it didn’t have to be fancy to be good. Black Rifle was the arrival at what felt like a final destination, at least for now. Every sip feels genuinely aligned with who I am and what is important to me.

That arc isn’t too much different from character development in a story, or craft development for the writer themselves. You start with whatever gets you going in the right direction. You pay attention, using all your senses to develop your preferences. Eventually, you find the tools, habits, and yes, the coffee that make you feel most like yourself when you sit down to write. 

That cup on your desk, it’s no accident. It’s part of the process.

Build Your Own Ritual

If you’re a writer who is still searching for your process, I’d encourage you to think less about finding the perfect creative environment and more about finding those small and repeatable cues that send that all-important signal to your brain that tells you it’s time to write. Writing isn’t always about the muse. A repeatable ritual is something you can always count on.

Start with the obvious things that are already there. If you reach for something specific every day before you do anything else, pay attention to that. You might have something more than a simple habit. It could be the beginning of a ritual you haven’t fully recognized yet. 

For me, it started with the memories of a handful of family members enjoying their morning coffee. I thought nothing of it then, but it resonates with the writer and the man I am now. Back then, it was just a pleasant smell that made mornings less intimidating.

It still does.

If you want to try the coffee that has become a fixture in my morning writing process, the fine folks at Black Rifle offer a range worth exploring. Whether you’re a dark roast loyalist like me, a medium roast pragmatist, or somewhere in between, Black Rifle has something for you. Give it a try. I’ll leave you a link to some of their selections here. I’ve also left links to selections of the other coffees I’ve mentioned throughout the article.

And if you’ve got your own coffee ritual or another routine that helps you create, I’d love to hear about it. Drop me a comment down below. Writers and creatives comparing rituals is one of my favorite conversations to have.