On days that I teach, I always start by assessing my students to see has an ample caffeine quotient. The thing about corporate training is that they’re paying top dollar, and at the end of the day, they rate me. So not only do I need to impart information, I need to be entertaining about it. A fully caffeinated class is a pleasure to deal with. But if only one-third of the class is undercaffeinated, I know I’m going to be beaten like a rented mule in the evals because the students are slower and I have to repeat myself a lot, which annoys everybody. In an ideal world, people would be well-rested. But since that’s not going to happen, then praise the Lord and pass the coffee pot. Undercaffeinated classes make me miss working a help desk and doing technical writing, and that’s really saying something. And I need a sufficient caffeine level myself, if I’m going to get anything done – whether I’m teaching that day or not.
Lifehacker has some tips for squeezing the most enjoyment out of whatever your coffee budget happens to be: Coffee: Brew the Best Possible Coffee Without Breaking the Bank. One of the tips mentions using good water – as it happens, soon after we bought our house we had a whole-house water filtering system put in with the reverse-osmosis unit for drinking water. The taste of coffee, tea, and just drinking water from the tap improved dramatically, and that’s part of the reason I keep a pretty high caffeine quotient myself; it just tastes good. We also invested in a really excellent coffee pot a while back and freshly ground beans do make a tremendous difference. Now I’m taking it to the next level – I’m trying out The Anchoress’ beloved Mystic Monk coffee. I ordered their “2 big, 2 small” pack of Dark Roast Columbian, Espresso Blend, Royal Rum Pecan and Hermit’s Bold Blend. I’ve been stalling on buying some not because I think I won’t like it… I’m concerned that I will. 
