Of course I do not work without coffee.

Like many, I do little before the coffee is ready.

Some great writers agree with me.

But of course there is a balance.

And any serious coffee drinker with tell you the same.

You want enough to buzz along as you work, but not enough to start the heart palpitations and hot flashes.

It is an elegant symmetry that takes a little bit of experience to keep a steady grip on.

Annie Dillard knows.

“There was a tiny range within which coffee was effective, short of which it was useless, and beyond which, fatal.”

–Annie Dillard, The Writing Life