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Dear Community ♡
It’s 7:45am, I’ve been awake since the 5s, and I’m sitting on the indoor daybed looking through the floor to ceiling glass windows, out at the backyard creek here in upstate NY. This morning’s bevy: Matcha (whole milk, coconut butter, collagen powder, vanilla extract, maple syrup, matcha) I heat it up in my favorite pot (linked below) and whirred it up with my blessed rechargeable frother (linked below). Spoiler Alert: I’m starting a new thing in my newsletters at the bottoms… Mari’s Favorite Things ;) and just like that, the subject for today’s newsletter is spontaneously born: MORNING BEVERAGES I’m curious when we all started drinking coffee. I didn’t drink it until I was 21, when I spent 6 months in Costa Rica. I don’t know how it began but I think I wasn’t getting enough sleep. Before that - I remember in high school being into Chai Lattes, and in childhood Strawberry Italian Soda. My coffee habit at 21 was gentle. Occasional. Intermittent. JUST LIKE ALL ADDICTIONS BEGIN…. and yes, you can imagine what happened from there. I LOVE knowing what people order when they go to the coffee shop. I am a hardcore “10 oz americano with (generous) half and half” with the very occasional matcha. I like the matcha I make at home better (it’s stronger ;) At home I use an aeropress to make coffee. I love it with my whole heart. Yes, it’s made of plastic. I turn a blind eye. Sidebar: I have a fantasy (that is going to become reality) to do a side-by-side taste test between Aeropress coffee and PourOver with my friend Chanel. I have a serious THING for side-by-side-taste-tests. (Last week I visited my parents and 3 times I made “the viral” cottage cheese ice cream with my mom’s ice cream maker. (added fresh cherries + crumbled graham crackers ’n ginger cookies.) Did a side-by-side with real vanilla ice cream. HANDS DOWN I PREFER THE CC EDITION. Watch out world, one day I’ll own my own ice cream maker (or the Ninja Creami which I hope to experience one day) So like I was saying- Aeropress. I love it. Single cup at a time. Strong. Fast. My body doesn’t like when I drink more than one cup of coffee— doing so often makes me feel bloated and weird. So for years, It’s been a coffee-a-day situation. and then…my life changed foreverrrrr 2021: THE PANDEMMI CHANGED MY LIFE: CACAO EDITION My friend Sergio had introduced me to cacao in late 2020. Ok so I’m sorry if this feels like a lot to take in right now, but: I never liked chocolate. My whole life. I would pick the chips out of a chocolate chip cookie. Call me Milli Vanilli it just wasn’t my thing. But: I could really feel the effects of the cacao, so it wasn’t just about the taste. Heart opening, grounding, expansive. and my favorite: Subtle. I remember the first morning he served it to me I said something about that I would have coffee after he left, and he said “See how you feel after the cacao”. Well guys, obviously I made the coffee after he left. Come on. We’re talking a capital H HABIT here. But I only drank a little bit - that was different. BUT STILL! I didn’t care for the taste, so I reserved cacao for ceremonial moments with clients and friends. and then.. 2021 I got my first bout of Covid, from a women’s circle in Boulder, Colorado that really could’ve been an SNL parody of a women’s circle in Boulder Colorado. In fact, we all got covid. I came down w symptoms once I was back in LA, and it was the “completely lose my taste and smell” varieté. I was so so sick. and of course, what do we do when we get sick? We take a break from coffee. IT HAD BEEN YEAAAAARRRSSS since I’d taken a proper break. So as I maneuvered my psyche through what felt like an alien invasion of my mind (Covid hit different) after some days I was so Depressi Bessi and I was ready for a pick-me-up but I thought to myself Come On Mu, it’ll be good for you to take some more space from coffee. and then LIGHBULB! I couldn’t taste anything anyway! Let’s have some CACAO! So I drank cacao without any sweetener — just some water + milk, ceremonial cacao, coconut butter and collagen cuz they go in all my bevys, cinnamon and cayenne. Couldn’t taste a thing. and HOLY SHIT In that sensitive state, so sick, so tender, I REALLY felt the cacao. It was such a gift, warm loving balm for my heart mind body soul. I drank it every morning, and as my taste and smell started to come back something miraculous (!) had happened — I had formed a sacred relationship with cacao and I now loved the taste! So since 2021, Cacao has been my main squeeze, with a very occasional side of coffee or matcha. I drink more coffee in the summer cuz summer is for partying and going wild, and omg this summer I’m apparently “on one”, cuz for the past months I’ve completely reverted to my old ways — Coffee and Matcha with an occasional side of Cacao. But I’m not trippin — I know this is just a moment, and cacao is waiting for me lovingly and patiently to come back home. CACAO MAGIC Many of you reading this have had my cacao. I’ve sent the recipe to many of you. I make something I call (truly, for lack of a better word): Goop. Instead of opening all the jars and containers for all the ingredients for the cacao, I make the goop every couple weeks. MARI’S GOOP coconut butter ghee tahini honey or maple syrup ground vanilla bean cinnamon cayenne pepper salt
So I heat up the milk and water in aforementioned favorite pot, measure out 30g cacao, add a big spoonful of goop, a couple scoops of collagen and a spoon of maca and whirr it up with, aforementioned, rechargeable whisk. Cacao in under a minute. It’s delish, it’s satisfying, it’s special, and it hits the spot. Anyway, while I “whyle out” (how do you spell that?) this summer and drink all the caffeine, emails like this happen! So before we go our separate ways for the day, let’s talk about one more thing. I’m a closet influencer. I love things, and I love telling people about them. I don’t want to be a content creator, I just want to be an influencer ;) I have so many wonderfully functional and/or beautiful and often high quality objects and items that make my life enjoyable and I’m going to start sharing more about them in the bottom of my emails. So today, introducing: 🎀 MARI’S FAVORITE THINGS 🎀 My Cacao Pot (or matcha pot) — My friend Jamie had a taller one that she used as her heat-up-hot-water-vessel in her kitchen. She lives in Oakland and is my Gemini big sister. I have slept on her couch many, many times. I loved the feel of her pot and it came to mind when I was looking for a pot with a spout for easy pouring. I love this pot so much. I bought one for my parents house too, which is the one I’m using here now in New York. My favorite USB-rechargeable whisk — I have had some others, and this one is my favorite. It’s very powerful, and so I use the whisk (whether for cacao or matcha) IN the pot so there’s plenty of room. If you were to try to whisk a full or even 3/4 full cup of something in the mug, you will make a big mess. Pot + Frother = Besties, Life Partners, Soulmates. The picture below is not the same frother. My Golde frother is back in LA, and this is one I keep at my parents house that works just as well. (Note: If you choose to go with a different brand, make sure it has 2 speed settings).
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