Random Anecdote
May. 28th, 2020 09:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
waitingmanJust while I'm thinking... & drinking about it...
How I Started Liking Coffee
My Father was a coffee drinker & I grew up with the smell of coffee being made in the kitchen several times a day. I always loved that smell - rich, steamy, kind of like chocolate, but not quite - enough that, of course, I was curious about this dark brown, hot drink, that Dad seemed to enjoy so much. When I was about 9 or 10, he let me try it...
I should mention, at this point, that it was always Nescafé Blend 43 instant coffee that he made, first with one teaspoon of sugar, then a few years later with one sugar substitute tab. By the time he offered it to me, it was with the aspartame tab...
I couldn't believe that something which smelled so good throughout my childhood, could taste so bad. Talk about a loss of childhood innocence! After that one sip, that was it - I hated coffee. That therefore, also went for coffee-flavoured cold milk, coffee-flavoured chocolates, anything that described itself as having a coffee taste, I wanted none of it. I still liked the smell though...
Fast-forward a few years to the point in my teens where I'm starting to take an interest in girls & wandering the maze of emotions, expectations, contradictions & confusion that comes with the territory. I'd fallen in with a group of friends that was made up of boys from my (all boys) high school & girls from a childhood friend's (all girls) high school. It was a comfortable group that survived 'til well after we'd all left school & gone to our various universities, colleges &/or jobs. None of us ever wound up 'with' each other... possibly because of the bond of friendship, possibly because one of those bonds was that we were all socially awkward in one way or another & could never articulate those sorts of desires & emotions with, or to, each other. Anyway, we'd regularly find ourselves in coffee shops & it became a standing joke that I'd always order a milkshake, while everyone else would have cappuccinos, or flat whites, but that I'd always run a finger across the froth of their coffee & taste that. Especially if it was a cappuccino with the sprinkled chocolate on the froth. This was the case, if not always the practice, well into my late 20s - though I had eventually stopped the finger taste testing, probably because a girlfriend (I did manage to have a few of those!!) had broken me of the habit
Fast-forward a few more years to my early 30s where, single again, I'd arranged to meet a girl I was interested in at a coffee shop - her suggestion I think &, of course, I agreed. This presented me with a dilemma. She didn't know me that well & might think it a bit weird if I ordered a milkshake, so it looked like I was going to have to order a coffee. My mind raced through what I knew about the stuff, trying to remember which one was the smallest amount I could get away with. Espresso... that was it!!! So I had an espresso, with a healthy dose of sugar, to kill what I knew would be a horrible taste. The things we do for lust...
It was wonderful!! Completely unlike the old instant stuff my Father drank... this wasn't 2 teaspoons of granulated chaff, drowned in water boiled in a jug & 'sweetened' with chemicals... this was made on one of those mysterious big machines behind the counter that rumbled & hissed steam. Now I knew what that machine did... so I ordered another, without the sugar this time, just to see if it was actually the coffee I liked, or just the sugar hit. Yep - it was the coffee after all. I don't remember who the girl was now, but I've always remembered that first 'proper' coffee... even after the thousands I've had in the last 20 years. So - no thanks to my late Father, who stuck with his instant goop for the rest of his life, preferring it to any of that fancy café stuff, but a huge, life-changing thank you to whatshername, for presenting me with such a significant fork in my road
I still hate instant coffee!!!
How I Started Liking Coffee
My Father was a coffee drinker & I grew up with the smell of coffee being made in the kitchen several times a day. I always loved that smell - rich, steamy, kind of like chocolate, but not quite - enough that, of course, I was curious about this dark brown, hot drink, that Dad seemed to enjoy so much. When I was about 9 or 10, he let me try it...
I should mention, at this point, that it was always Nescafé Blend 43 instant coffee that he made, first with one teaspoon of sugar, then a few years later with one sugar substitute tab. By the time he offered it to me, it was with the aspartame tab...
I couldn't believe that something which smelled so good throughout my childhood, could taste so bad. Talk about a loss of childhood innocence! After that one sip, that was it - I hated coffee. That therefore, also went for coffee-flavoured cold milk, coffee-flavoured chocolates, anything that described itself as having a coffee taste, I wanted none of it. I still liked the smell though...
Fast-forward a few years to the point in my teens where I'm starting to take an interest in girls & wandering the maze of emotions, expectations, contradictions & confusion that comes with the territory. I'd fallen in with a group of friends that was made up of boys from my (all boys) high school & girls from a childhood friend's (all girls) high school. It was a comfortable group that survived 'til well after we'd all left school & gone to our various universities, colleges &/or jobs. None of us ever wound up 'with' each other... possibly because of the bond of friendship, possibly because one of those bonds was that we were all socially awkward in one way or another & could never articulate those sorts of desires & emotions with, or to, each other. Anyway, we'd regularly find ourselves in coffee shops & it became a standing joke that I'd always order a milkshake, while everyone else would have cappuccinos, or flat whites, but that I'd always run a finger across the froth of their coffee & taste that. Especially if it was a cappuccino with the sprinkled chocolate on the froth. This was the case, if not always the practice, well into my late 20s - though I had eventually stopped the finger taste testing, probably because a girlfriend (I did manage to have a few of those!!) had broken me of the habit
Fast-forward a few more years to my early 30s where, single again, I'd arranged to meet a girl I was interested in at a coffee shop - her suggestion I think &, of course, I agreed. This presented me with a dilemma. She didn't know me that well & might think it a bit weird if I ordered a milkshake, so it looked like I was going to have to order a coffee. My mind raced through what I knew about the stuff, trying to remember which one was the smallest amount I could get away with. Espresso... that was it!!! So I had an espresso, with a healthy dose of sugar, to kill what I knew would be a horrible taste. The things we do for lust...
It was wonderful!! Completely unlike the old instant stuff my Father drank... this wasn't 2 teaspoons of granulated chaff, drowned in water boiled in a jug & 'sweetened' with chemicals... this was made on one of those mysterious big machines behind the counter that rumbled & hissed steam. Now I knew what that machine did... so I ordered another, without the sugar this time, just to see if it was actually the coffee I liked, or just the sugar hit. Yep - it was the coffee after all. I don't remember who the girl was now, but I've always remembered that first 'proper' coffee... even after the thousands I've had in the last 20 years. So - no thanks to my late Father, who stuck with his instant goop for the rest of his life, preferring it to any of that fancy café stuff, but a huge, life-changing thank you to whatshername, for presenting me with such a significant fork in my road
I still hate instant coffee!!!
(no subject)
Date: 2020-05-28 02:15 am (UTC)