At first, you know nothing about coffee

Happy birthday to my sweetest, dearest, and sometimes idiot neighbour, Tristan, who turns a glorious 21 today. /mwah

I took the day off work today because I was in excruciating pain this morning. I had trouble sleeping because I was woken up by my stomach putting me into maxtreme pain, and that’s really not cool, and I was also on the verge of throwing up which was also severely uncool.

While most people like to try and be productive on their days off, especially if they just have a cold and can very well still do other things, I spent a lot of my time napping and trying to reduce the effects of my interrupted sleep last night.

I thought I would share a random little story about coffee.

I am not a coffee person. I will admit that I was. I am more of a tea person. For me coffee is more like a treat that I might have once a month when I feel like I’ve been good. Otherwise, herbal teas do me.

I was a coffee person in my early years of university. I was used to getting to school before 8:00am, but getting to university by 8:00am (even when classes did not start until 9:00am) was a different story, since it took about an hour to travel. I would often carry a thermos of soup during winter, and during other months, I would fill my thermos with coffee.

The kind of coffee I drank was just from our freeze-dried jar of cheap coffee in our family’s kitchen cupboard. It didn’t bother me at all. Just one spoon, and mix.

I did not like to add sugar or milk. I liked it plain black.

Little did I know that there was actually a world of coffee out there to be explored. I am by no means a coffee enthusiast, though I do know a heck of a lot more about coffee types now than I did back then.

But this story is about my first… well, coffee shot. I knew what a cappuccino was, basically a coffee with milk. But what the heck was a macchiato, and a cafelatte, and why did people ask for flat whites and long blacks and what the heck did they mean?

Needless to say, I was a bit embarrassed that I didn’t know about coffee and people made such a big deal out of coffee orders.

I used to work in an office where everyone seemed to love coffee to bits. I would be puzzled and frown at the fact that they could go for two coffees in the morning and still go and buy some during the day. To be honest, I never understood the appeal, and most of all, I could never understand how people could spend four dollars a day on coffee, every day of the week. Why, I thought, when I can just bring coffee from home?

Yeah, the taste, the flavour, I know.

Though it took me a long time to understand and appreciate non-freeze-dried coffee, and to appreciate coffee straight from beans, or what have you (see, even now I am not sure what I am talking about), it was partially because my first experience having something that was actual coffee sucked.

Probably because I pretended I knew what my co-worker was talking about when he said he would get me a “really nice espresso shot”.

I didn’t know that it would be ground coffee that was literally like a shot of alcohol in a miniscule cup that tasted bitter than bitter melons dipped in a pint of beer mixed with way too much lemon juice.

I wish someone had actually told me what the hell an espresso shot actually was.

But then again, I am an idiot, and I simply nodded my head and accepted the offer. After that, I secretly tried random types of coffee on various menus, and pretended I knew what the fuck I was ordering, oh I’ll have a long black, or a piccolo latte, and would try not to be startled at the size of the serving, and would try extremely hard not to spit a mouthful of wonderful freshly ground coffee across the table for the excruciating bitterness that hit my tongue.

It’s funny, because I liked plain old bean water when I had freeze-dried coffee, nothing added, but my tastebuds suffered when I had a cup of real coffee.

I suck.

Coffee is totally not for me.

Comments on this post

Coffee is something I started to understand like last year LOL. Until then, I could differentiate between a cafe mocha, cafe latte, macchiato, and etcetera. But until I tried this coffee in my neighbourhood, I never knew it could be GOOD. See, until then, I’d always get espresso-based coffee with a lot of sugar because I like it sweet. But when I tried ChansBros coffee in my neighbourhood, it was so good. Good to the point that it taste excellent without any sweetener! So that’s a place I go to get my coffee now. In fact, I can no longer stand Starbucks coffee!

I love espresso-based coffee. Brewed coffee (the ones through those coffee machines at home) are way too watered down for me! So now I know that I prefer espresso-based ones :D

And no, Georgie, you do not suck for not liking coffee or understanding coffee lingo! I sure as heck do not still understand all my coffee terminology, but bit by bit I’m learning, and you are, too! ^^

I didn’t know that it would be ground coffee that was literally like a shot of alcohol in a miniscule cup that tasted bitter than bitter melons dipped in a pint of beer mixed with way too much lemon juice.

I wish someone had actually told me what the hell an espresso shot actually was.

My brother got us an espresso machine last year. I’d seen those tiny cups but I never really understood the terminology either. I would never have guessed they were called shots too, which is especially funny in retrospect because of what you just said above about shots of alcohol!

I never got into coffee either, so you and me both I guess.

My dad used to say real coffee aficionados drink it black, so go you? He used to scoff at me for taking it with cream and sugar. I like it sweet, okay? ;_; A hot cup of coffee is glorious after a good meal.

And I only ever order one thing in coffee shops: iced hazelnut. That thing is heaven in a plastic cup. Sure, I tried other types of coffee, but iced hazelnut is The One. Well, I guess I’m having a little fling with chocolate frappes lately. XD

Coffee isn’t for everyone. I used to hate coffee but right now, it’s the very thing that helps me stay awake during classes or work. It’s horrible how I use it to keep myself awake but I get so exhausted from everything, sometimes, it seems to be the one thing that works when I can’t get enough sleep.

Honestly, I just like coffee with a lot of sugar/milk/chocolate, etc. I live above a Starbucks here in Seattle and they’re convenient and somewhat delicious. I still prefer local coffee shops with a real strong mocha or chai tea latte but I’ve never been able to drink my tea black. I can barely down regular coffee with some milk and sugar. I need all the fixings. :P

On another note, could you help me figure out my comments.php file again? I have no idea how to make my comments threaded (so when people respond to a comment, they show up underneath the comment they responded to). Let me know if you have some time in the next few weeks! No rush, it would just be nice to clean up my comments.php and I have yet to find an awesome tutorial on the ins and outs of that file.

Forgive me if this comment seems a bit off…been having some trouble with sinuses as of late.

I had never understood why people loved coffee so much. When I was younger I actually used to drink that instant coffee were you take it out of a jar or little container and add milk or water and voila instant coffee. My Grandmother allowed me to have it every now and then. However, when I got older I didn’t really start drinking it until way later in life. I was always a soda person never a coffee person. But than again I never realized there were different types of coffees to begin with.

My favorite of drinking coffee now a days is by adding sugar and the powdered cream. I used to drink it with the liquid creamer but I intend to save that for iced coffee. I didn’t realize that there were different types of coffee or different blends. I started paying more attention when I moved out of my dad’s house and on my own. I now realize that there are different strengths of coffee. I actually prefer Folgers and Yuban and possibly Maxwell more than anything else.

I started to become more of a Green Tea type of person due to the Asian cultures that inspired me to drink tea in between meals and what not. I will admit that I have 3 tea boxes right now, however; only two of the boxes of tea is bit nasty without sugar. I don’t know how to doctor it up without having to put sugar in it. However, I still drink coffee in the mornings and through out the day.

Anyways, Happy Belated Birthday to Tristan.

I’m not a coffee person either. Always been a tea person, though. Ever since I was like three or four years old, tea joined quaker and milk as a child’s few acceptable choices of drinks. Even when soft drink joined such small collection (and even then not very frequent), coffee was always this mystical, rare drink that adults drank on TV (thinking about it, coffee doesn’t seem that popular in Peru unlike other places in South America).

I can’t remember my first cup of coffee, it might have been at a McCafe I ended up working at, but I don’t think I ever enjoyed ‘true’ coffee. It was always bitter, or had too much milk or whatever. I never quite developed a taste for it, but a long black with two or three packets of sugar? I’d be up for that.

That said, I was never able to make a good cup of coffee with those instant coffee powders things, so that’s even more reason for me to stay in the glorious path that is tea drinking.