I know that a lot of bridge players out there love their coffee just as much as I do.

Coffee isn’t just quickly made, but best brewed. It can be made a thousand different ways, and with hundreds of different variations available to suit your taste. I love a good cup of coffee, especially when I’m sitting down for a bridge game.

I’ve had great coffees, bad coffees, and – I think – at least a few poisoned coffees.

Do you enjoy the mixture of coffee and cards?

Here are 5 things about coffee (I’ve learned while playing bridge).

1. Coffeehousing Isn’t coffee-related

Coffeehousing isn’t a coffee-related term, but a bridge one. The term coffehousing means to mislead your opponents with a deliberate misdirection, something considered to be illegal in bridge (though common in the times when card games were played in literal coffee-houses).

If you’re a fellow coffee-lover, I bet you can’t read the word coffeehousing without imagining your ideal cup of java already.

2. You can (drink too much for bridge)

Lesson number one as a coffee enthusiast is that there are different types and strengths of coffee, and that you should never push the line. It seems like a good idea to drink 20 espresso shots until you’ve actualy tried it.

Excessive amounts of caffeine will make you feel shaky, irritated, and like you’re about to crash the metaphorical boat any second.

Consume coffee responsibly, or you’ll have to be separated from the bridge table with the jaws of life.

3. At arm’s length (spares your hands)

Smart bridge players, typists, and programmers keep their coffee mugs away from their computers and cards – at about arm’s length. This way, even if you knocked the mug, you can spare your cards and keyboards.

It’s such a simple piece of advice.

I’ve replaced three keyboards just because I forgot about it. Always keep drinks away from your game.

4. Just use coasters

Coasters seem almost old-fashioned in the age where your phone can order a pizza with a small helicopter. But that’s only until you’ve realized that the purer the coffee, the more likely it gets to stain things – and you should have really listened to that bridge column that warned you about the coasters.

Use coasters if you’d like to save your surfaces. There’s a reason why arts-and-crafts projects use coffee to stain things: because it will.

See?

Just use coasters.

5. Bad dairy substitues include…

I’ve had plenty of times where I had access to coffee, but not milk. It’s an uncomfortable situation for any coffee drinker who refuses to drink their coffee black-as-sin. What did I do to fix the problem? Dairy substitutes.

I can say from experience that there are some things you just don’t want to use in coffee. Flavoured nutritional shakes and custard are just two of those things.

If all you can find in the house is dyed yellow, just drink the coffee black and get it over with. Trust the column’s advice on this.

Are you a lover of bridge and coffee together?