Coffee Drinking Journey

 Inspired by https://horizon51.blogspot.com/2023/03/solsc-23-day-27-coffee-evolution.html?sc=1679933732168#c4098539422588800953

I first drank coffee in high school. I was in a lot of music groups and one summer my friends and I would go to IHOP after rehearsal. Thinking back, it's amazing how much food high school students can eat. Some of my friends were drinking coffee, so I started drinking it too. I took it black because my parents always did.

Fast forward past college to grad school. I had a friend would would add a single drop of cream to his coffee. He said it took the edge off the bitterness. I started doing the same, only my "drop" got bigger and bigger until it was really coffee with cream. 

Side note: Back in the olden days, like the 60s, when you ordered coffee in New York City you got it with cream in it unless you specified black.

Another fast forward to the 1990s. Now I'm married with two children who I signed up for art classes on Saturday mornings. While they were making art, I would go across the street to a coffee shop and have a latte and read. It was such a nice, relaxing way to spend Saturday morning that my husband decided to join me, even though we didn't need two parents driving the kids to art class. 

Then came Starbucks. A Starbucks opened about a block away from "our" coffee shop. Eventually the charming coffee shop closed. I know this was happening everywhere. And yes, I did get coffee, lots of it, from Starbucks.

However, I also started making coffee at home. It didn't take any more time to make a cup at home than it did to stop at Starbucks on the way to work. I started buying coffee beans and used a press pot to make my morning cup. I highly recommend the press pot - it makes a nice, smooth cup of coffee. I bought a coffee grinder and good whole beans from the grocery store. Somewhere along the way I had become lactose intolerant, so I switched to almond milk. I don't like sweet coffee, but I like a hint of sweetness so I add a tiny bit of caramel syrup.

Also along the way my son became a barrista, first at Caribou, then at Starbucks. 

We recently took a Caribbean cruise that had a stop in Jamaica. My son the Coffee Master asked us to buy some coffee beans in Jamaica (He was babysitting his infant son at the time.). So we brought back two bags of coffee beans, one for us and one for him. We have almost finished our bag. 

The end of my post, though not the end of my coffee drinking!