Interestingly enough, as a teenager, I thought coffee a disgusting beverage both bitter and without much flavor. The incredible heat given off made it almost impossible to pass over my underdevoloped taste buds and "charming" coffee mugs seemed less than manly to a youngster teeming with testosterone.
In a few short years, however, I began understanding the allure of coffee. First, after several attempts at drinking it, I began to really discover it's appeal. I tried coffee with sugar, with traditional creamers (both powdered and liquid) and later with the various flavored creamers. After a few years of experimentation, I found that I enjoyed coffee for coffee's sake; the flavor of a good Arabica or Sumatran beans are to be cherished.
The smell of a freshly brewed pot of coffee also meant the start of a new day, a day full of new adventures. Bed head heaped atop my frame, a pair of sweats and a hoodie, flip flops on my feet, I would stagger to the coffee pot and press the brew button and anxiously await the opportunity to come to life.
Coffee could also be placed in a thermos and taken to a destination, whether it be on a hiking trip or possibly a hunting or fishing stay. Later, someone got the bright idea to develop insulated cups, which served as smaller thermoses, complete with a business or a favorite athletic team's logo.
But what coffee really meant to me in those earlier years was an introduction to adulthood. It was something to be enjoyed by those who have come of age, something to be consumed in an intoxicating fashion, without the ill after effects of alcohol. "Children be gone," coffee would scream!
I was so dismayed, however, when Starbucks and other Seattle brewers made drinking coffee "cool" in order to attract the teen demographic. Heck, they really weren't purchasing coffee; rather, some mocha grande frape crap(e) would be bought and topped with Cool Whip or some other nonsense. But what they (the coffee shops) did was take away an adult pleasure, that is, the gathering of adults to talk in relative peace about unimportant or important things minus the worry of being interrupted by some wayward teen or pre-adolescent.
Now, I just enjoy my coffee in solace or with my wife, sometimes in our family room or sometimes on our deck. And all is right in the world again.
Peace, love and coffee my friends.......
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