Long time coffee drinker always either from a restaurant or at home from ground coffee. About two months ago I got a premium coffee maker with a built in grinder as a gift. So I bought a bunch of whole bean coffees and started making my own. The taste is great and it felt good to know I was grinding fresh coffee every morning.
However a few days in I started feeling strange, unfocused dis associative feeling like I wasn’t present and everything felt like a panoramic view, driving felt really dangerous like I wasn’t able to focus on the road and I was just on autopilot. I thought nothing of it and days and weeks went by and still the same effect… I couldn’t possibly be the coffee I thought but I took a break and switched to regular ground coffee and strangely enough the autopilot thing went away, started back and it came back - did this on and off for the last 3 weeks with all different types and brands of coffee but all whole bean - and it’s definitely the coffee…
What could be causing this… are there certain oils or chemicals in the bean that are gone from coffee that’s been ground already that I’m having a reaction to? Has anyone experienced anything like this?
I have a premium espresso machine with a built in grinder. Whole beans only.
No effect(s) like you describe whatsoever. I’ve had everything from instant to pods to my current machine. Only difference I feel is the “buzz” due to differences in caffeine content.
My recommendation is that you go to a Starbucks and get an Americano (which is an espresso with water added to it to make “coffee”), which is made from ground whole beans. If you don’t feel any effects from that, then it’s not the whole beans.
sometimes I felt bad from overgrinding, or getting mine ground too fine. I thought you might have bought decaf beans too. All the ground from the store was whole bean not far back though. Did you grind it for the day or several days worth at once. Ground coffee might have glutamate in in though which can make people feel good, but then you feel bad with no coffee. By the way, I recently cut my caffeine down (started at new year) from 3 cups twice a day to 2cups morning only and now if I have more (3 cups or afternoon cup) i can’t sleep and feel overstimulated for hours. If you grind your coffee too fine and get 50% more caffeine out of the beans it can make a difference. I also had a feeling like yours when I tried switching to matcha green tea. It could have been higher caffeine, or an allergy or too much L-Theanine which is supposed to zone you out and is natural in coffee and green tea.
Could it be the new coffee maker itself? Maybe it has some plasticizers leaching from it, or is made of some material you didn’t realize you were sensitive to. Try running it with pre-ground coffee you have used before without issue, and see how you feel after a few days of that.