Postum You're probably scratching your head and asking yourself, "What the heck is Postum?"

Earlier today, I mentioned to my son how I was tricked into trying Postum, sometime in 1977 or 1978. One morning, I was looking to make myself a cup of coffee, but there was no coffee brewed yet, and there wasn't any instant coffee in the house. One of my sisters offered to make some coffee for me. I left and returned in about an hour and she handed me a cup. My mouth, my tongue and my mind were all prepared for the soothing taste of fresh coffee. When I took a sip from the cup, I was mentally and physically assaulted by a taste that was completely foreign to me. After complaining with a loud "Yuck!" and asking what was wrong with the coffee, she confessed that she had made a cup of Postum instead because there wasn't any coffee roast in the house either. I left to get coffee from a local restaurant. That was the last time I ever saw Postum in my life.

According to Wikipedia and other confirming websites, Postum is a cereal beverage invented by Charles William Post (founder of Post, Texas) in 1895 and marketed as a coffee substitute. Yes, the same Post that makes breakfast cereal. It's still sold to this day, but you won't find it in many supermarkets. Unlike decaffeinated coffee, Postum is naturally caffeine free, consisting of mostly wheat and molasses. After visiting a few websites and stopping at one in particular (Jeff Werner) and reading the comments, it seems there are some near-fanatical lovers of Postum. I may have actually liked it, had my sister prepared it the right way.

While Postum is made of grain and other innocuous stuff, it contains more carbohydrates than coffee, especially after you doctor it up with other sweeteners and creamers. Coffee, on the other hand, can cause problems for some people. It you drink too much at a time, you can get severe heartburn. That leads me to my next post, so I won't expound on it here.

They don't sell Postum here in the Philippines. I don't know if that's a blessing or a curse.