Coffee Talk

Growing up, I always found coffee to be a very adult beverage.

Of course, the term “adult beverage” has a different connotation now. An adult beverage may more likely be something you put in your coffee to give it an ethnicity.

So, the first time I tried coffee was at our family Christmas party when I was 12 or 13. We always ate Christmas dinner at my great aunt’s house, then walked about 50 feet to my grandparents’ house to open presents.

(Side note 1: my grandparents and great aunt and uncle were a pair of brothers married to a pair of sisters.

Their next door neighbors were also a pair of brothers married to a pair of sisters. Small town America pre-internet – heck, pre-telephone for them – was a different world. All four pairs of brothers or sisters were farmers back in the day, but long retired when this story takes place, though we still had barns and sheds and large swaths of land to mow, which was the primary consumer of my free time – mowing acres of land every week to keep the no-longer-farm looking neat.)

Anyway, coffee was always served after dinner with dessert. My great aunt asked, “who wants coffee?” and I was all eager to be part of the adults. “I do.” She’s like, “Sure, okay, if that’s what you want.” She served me up a cup of the best Folgers had to offer, and I took that first tentative sip. I didn’t want to look uncool, but I grimaced and stepped away from the coffee and left it there on the dining table. How on God’s green earth did adults find this appealing???

Fast forward to university. I still would not touch coffee, but more and more of my friends did. At some point, there becomes a practical need for coffee – fuel for the late-night or all-night study sessions. At first I tried Mountain Dew or other sugary caffeinated sodas, but they got me too energetic – I didn’t want to thrash around in a mosh pit; I wanted to study. So I discovered my ideal fuel – dark chocolate covered espresso beans!

(Side note 2: I did spend a lot of time in mosh pits when I was at university.

I lost my hearing to all those kick ass concerts; I think I’ve described these concerts and venues in a few past ‘gum posts. I spent a couple of years as mosh pit citizen – more bouncy than aggressive. Then a couple more years as mosh pit guardian – one of the guys who stands at the edge of the pit to shove folks and serve as a protective shield to people who just came for the music.)

I didn’t love the chocolate coffee beans, but they served a purpose – they kept me up without making me bounce off the walls. Step one in my coffee evolution.

Then in grad school, a friend invited me to a hip local coffee shop. I didn’t know what to get, so I got a mocha and some of their homemade hummus (which they made look like a mouse with the veggies – so it was a hummouse).

The café mocha seemed approachable – kind of like a liquid version of the dark chocolate espresso beans I was already eating. I could actually kind of tolerate it – again, didn’t love it, but I loved the vibe of the place. It seemed like the kind of place I wanted to be – cool local music performances, lots of folks with dyed hair and vegan energy. (I mean “vegan energy” in a positive way – like spirited and principled. Not “vegan energy” in a negative way – like someone who eats no protein and has trouble lifting the laundry basket.)

Then, as grad school progressed, I started seeking out coffee on my own – always the type of coffee with lots of milk and sweet elements – a mocha or a latte or something with caramel or vanilla syrup. Black coffee was not remotely interesting to me, but the practical element (staying awake) and the social element (excuse to hang with friends) kind of pulled me into the coffee orbit. Coffee evolution proceeding…

Fast forward a few more years… I was a working joe and had a new baby. My wife took care of my son while I was at work, so I tried to take on most of the night shift duties, which were every – single – night. My son would not sleep without lots of back rubbing and lullaby singing, and my efforts to get him to sleep naturally robbed me of my own Zzzzz’s. Of course, not getting my sleep at night made me a yawny person during the day. After being pretty drowsy at work for a while, I realized there was a Starbucks across the street. I went there one day and got a black coffee, dark roast, with plenty of room for cream and sugar. It woke me up, and it was kind of tasty.

(Side note 3: in those days when my son was a baby or early toddler, it was hard to put him to sleep unless he was in motion.

He fell asleep easily in the car, so we went for drives around the city every single day to get him to take a nap. In a pinch, I could put him in a stroller in our tiny condo and pace around until he nodded off. I wonder if this association with motion and comfort is why he is officially the biggest car aficionado the world has ever seen?)

Over the course of a few months, I started going every day to that Starbucks. And by the end of a year, I was just getting the coffee black. “Blacker than a hundred midnights / Down in a cypress swamp,” as James Weldon Johnson penned in his poem “The Creation”. Then I thought to myself, why am I spending $3 a day every day for Starbucks, when I could just make it at home and save a lot of money? So I invested in a $20 drip coffee maker (my friends call me “ Mister Big Spender”), and I was officially an adult at age 32. My coffee evolution was nearly complete.

Now I’m kind of on the older side. I have a heart condition, and my doctor recommended I reduce my coffee consumption. I reluctantly lowered my coffee intake from a pot a day to half- pot a day. But what I lack in quantity, I make up for in quality. Nowadays, I’m a total coffee snob. If it’s not locally-roasted, single source from a farm in Burundi or Ethiopia or Peru, then it’s not my cup of, well, you know . Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not a rich guy, not by a long shot. But coffee is one of those few things in my life that I will not skimp on – it’s unskimpable. It’s my own personal indulgence.

(Side note 4: I remember I had a friend in high school who was a really smart guy, but just a bit of a wild card, a free spirit.

We went our separate ways when we went to college and lost touch. While he was in college, he got his girlfriend pregnant, so he had to drop out and get a job to support his new family. When I bumped into him a few years later – at a concert, naturally – he told me about his work, his life, his kid, the whole life story over several years apart. He was installing garage doors and seemed to be pretty content with his life. He told me that there were lots of things he and his family would skimp on to make ends meet, but toilet paper was off limits – they HAD to have the good toilet paper. That was non-negotiable. At the time, I only kind of understood, but now I TOTALLY understand.)

I’m not sure if I have reached some level of coffee bodhisattva or if I have more evolution still ahead of me. I know that coffee is very much a part of my life. I suppose you could call it an addiction, and you wouldn’t be wrong. But I feel like it’s an addiction I don’t have to feel ashamed of or worried about (my cardiologist may have a different opinion)

tnocs.com brothers and sisters, I ask of you (if you want to share):

1. What the story of your coffee evolution?

2. What thing in your life is unskimpable?

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