Drinking Coffee All the Time

Who doesn’t love the fall? What’s not to love when turning leaves are providing a visual feast of saturated reds and yellows, and it’s absolutely fine to eat an apple cider donut once in a while? People put on their hiking boots, call in the chimney sweep and embrace the culture of harvest in all of its pumpkin-and-hayrides glory. But there’s a downside for people who suffer from seasonal affective disorder (SAD). As the days get shorter, the lack of sunlight wreaks havoc on their serotonin and melatonin neurotransmitters. Roughly 6% of Americans suffer from SAD and another 14% experience the ‘winter blues,’ a less severe variant of SAD, but very real nonetheless.   Seventy million Americans face a seasonal problem that wasn’t acknowledged as a real condition until 1984 when Dr. Norman Rosenthal, a clinical psychiatry professor at Georgetown, laid out the diagnostic criteria for SAD.  The DSM-V categorizes SAD as a modifier—“with seasonal pattern” to recurrent major depres

Life as a mom in Suburbia can be a bit cookie-cutter.  Life as a stay-at-home-mom in Suburbia can be nearly surreal in its fulfilled expectation.  This is not the 1950s and it’s the rare SAHM who prides herself on a Donna Reed-esque tidy home and nightly roast.  We are modern women living out vintage lives in a modern world.  Thankfully, for those of us living in the Manhattan-adjacent burbs, there are a few more opportunities that keep us tied to the real world.  It is just a situation like this that draws me to our town’s stand-in for the water cooler – Java Love .  While I have often spent an afternoon sitting in the reclaimed comfort of burlap coffee sacks and beautifully collaged wood, the café thrives as a setting for an afternoon of shop-talk--- getting acquainted with a local friend in a way our busy lives and Facebook banter cannot provide.  Unlike the ubiquitously-branded Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts stores scattered about town, Java Love tends thankfully toward

Three weeks ago, there was a pleasant buzz about the latest coffee shop to open in town. Crazy Mocha, located at 491 Bloomfield Avenue on the ground floor of a 93-year-old bank building, is a Pittsburgh-based chain owned by Ken Zeff. According to a brief convo with the super-friendly, attractive young baristas, Zeff’s brother lives in Montclair. Having spent a fair amount of time visiting his brother, Zeff decided that Montclair would be a good location for another Crazy Mocha storefront. Because of its philosophy of locating its stores so as not to cannibalize the business of independent coffee shops (such as Java Love downtown on Church St.), its location on Bloomfield Ave. several blocks north of Trend Coffeehouse, is perfect. Not only is there plenty of table seating, but there is a lounge communal area near the front windows replete with comfortable large leather shares, tables made for hanging out and other little seating nooks for those who are seeking a more