I have a very clear memory of being probably five or six years old and being on vacation with my grandparents. When my brother and I were younger, these would happen periodically, with my grandparents swooping in with their “World Tourister” van, with its built in TV and ever-mystifying AV setup, collecting their two eldest grandchildren and setting off for a week or two of adventure—to New England to climb rocks and visit confusingly tangential relatives, to Virginia to visit Williamsburg and wander the Outer Banks. These trips were full of oddities of many sorts—there were different rules of behavior of course, and new expectations. And there was a the string of meals eaten not in the familiar breakfast nook of my house, but rather in a series of diners and hotel restaurants, with pancakes and waffles and all sorts of delicious treats masquerading as a real meal.
All this by way of saying that it was in one of these diners that I tried coffee for the first time. I think my grandparents were bemused when I asked if I could try the same liquid that they guzzled every morning. Neither of my parents drink coffee so this morning ritual was yet another novelty to try once and subsequently accept or reject. They approved of one cup in place of my usual hot chocolate and I anticipated the thing excitedly as the waitress approached with three dark brown mugs.
My grandmother advised that I let it cool for a bit and I waited ever so patiently for the dark brown liquid to stop steaming so aggressively before lifting and taking a tentative sip.
I have a much younger sister who is turning five this September. When she was about two, we were in the habit of weekly dinners at a neighborhood Italian restaurant where they kept a bowl of lemon slices on the table for water. While waiting for our food to arrive, it was always mightily entertaining to let her have the brightly covered fruit; which she would promptly stick in her mouth. There was always a brief moment before her face would crumple into an absolutely disgusted mien, every nerve wrinkled, her cheeks flushing red. But she wouldn’t drop the offending morsel, instead choosing to try it again, testing with childish hope the possibility that the sour taste would have dissipated in the interceding five seconds.
In retrospect, our allowing and even encouraging this entertainment might have contributed directly to my sisters current refusal to eat a whole host of foods, including pancakes and strawberries. And when I say “our” I most certainly mean my father and I, the members of the family who would have no problem taking our amusement from the baby at the cost of a few sour moments. It was a long wait and rounds of current events hangman can only entertain for so many minutes.
When I now remember that long gone morning in that distant coffeehouse, I have decoupaged some facsimile of my yet-unthought-of sister’s face onto my own in my mind’s eye. It must have been a moment’s diversion for my grandparents to see my face similarly twisted at the bitter taste of the dark liquid. I tried it once more for good measure before turning the mug into a sort of culinary experiment, adding liberal amounts of sugar and cream in the vain attempt to make this nasty hot stuff into something vaguely palatable. Upon my failure in this attempt I swore off coffee definitively for the next decade or so.
When Starbucks took over the world, I was pulled ever so slightly into it’s maelstrom of caffeinated pleasure, indulging in the occasional caramel frappacino, mellowing the bitter coffee flavor with a deluge of ice and cream and sugar and whipped cream. But I knew very well that I was just playing at coffee consumption, not even playing in the minor leagues as much as playing a pick-up game in the back yard with a plastic bat and whiffle ball. But the whole ambiance provided many entertaining afternoons and evening, spent tucked into armchairs, gossiping like a mad woman with friends while pulling on some delightful confection, not just at Starbucks but at the much cooler independent coffee shop across the street, playing at independence and maturity and the ability to swill the bitter with the sweet in a cuppa or two.
This new appreciation of Starbucks led directly to me terrifying my Duke interviewer. Coming straight from school on a Wednesday afternoon, I was trying to meet a complete stranger and persuade them that I might be a competent enough human being to attend their alma mater. In light of this, the tall caramel frap was perhaps, in retrospect, a poor choice. By the time my interviewer showed up, a combination of caffeine, nerves and adrenalin meant I was speaking at a speed not previously known to man. As I explained my insane love for Duke and intense desire to go there, I found the poor woman looking at me, mildly befuddled, trying to interpret the noises coming rapidly from my mouth. I managed to shut myself up eventually, approximately five seconds after I said I wanted to go to Duke because I didn’t want to deal with dumb people and five second before I said that UF boys were to dumb to date. I made a mental note no to over caffeinate before interviews again.
They let me in anyways so I arrived and promptly befriended some stalwart coffee drinkers, whose foodpoints seemed to direct themselves at the various campus eateries that could serve up a decent cup. I played self-deprecating, admitting that I was not hard-core enough for real coffee. I developed a reputation as an orange-juice addict, even downing glass after glass of Marketplace slop in order to indulge my fixation. My foodpoints went to Odwalla as steadily as Danielle’s went towards Alpine.
Then freshman year was over and I cried by myself in my room for a week and then went to work from 9-5 for the first time in my life. This was not a pleasant adjustment from my semester of 10 AM breakfast dates and 11 AM class times. Plus my job was a little less than thrilling so it required some infusions of caffeine to function at something approaching top form. Those cute little Starbucks frapps, my morning bananas and I became very good friends in the back nook where my desk was tucked. We were all very happy together. I even forgave my beloved bottles when one of them betrayed me with unexpected sour flavor after a cracked bottle top allowed the milk to go beyond rank.
This past fall I made a mistake called 8:30 Compsci class halfway across campus and quickly found that while hot chocolate from Alpine left me too strung out to manage an after class power nap, it really was not enough to get me through the rest of the day. I resigned myself to coffee.
I started with ice coffee, which is known for being less bitter and not threatening an egregiously burned tongue, which was nice. I could add lots of milk and some sugar and down the whole thing happily in a couple of minutes and start talking faster than anyone could follow and it was good.
But sometimes you cannot get iced coffee. One of these paces would be my office, which does not have iced coffee, but brews several pots of Community Coffee, a local wonderful brand, each day. And in less than a week I have become a crazed coffee nut.
I have been greatly enjoying at least one cup of real, hot coffee every day with only a minimum of creamer and sugar. I drink it quickly like a real person. It makes me very happy. My foot is wiggling madly and I’m typing even more spastically than normal, but the synapses are firing in spite of the fact that I stayed up late playing with the group blogging session and was dragging ever so slightly during my perusal of Kate Chopin during the morning streetcar ride. Thankfully this is a great city for being in love with coffee. Café du Monde is famous for its beignets but ever so slightly less known for its sweet coffee slushy. Community Coffee is on every other corner making you feel good about yourself for buying local. And everyone is late to everything so you have time to duck out and get a fix.
My roommate is not going to know when I come back to her and have suddenly become the type of girl that spends a half hour on the elliptical and needs a thermos full of coffee brewed in the kitchen before heading to my 10:05. It’s been a long journey but here I am with the empty cup next to my keyboard and plans to head to the gym as soon as I arrive at the end of my long trek down St. Charles.