When I was little, I could never understand the appeal of coffee. I couldn't grasp why anyone would want to drink that foul, steaming black stew that filled my parents mugs every morning - and all day long on the weekends. Slowly as I got older, I learned to first appreciate the smell of coffee, then the idea of coffee and finally, or maybe at last I've learned to appreciate - even savour - the taste of coffee.
For me, my love of coffee is equatable to that of my appreciation for wine. As a little girl, my parents would never stop me or my siblings from sneaking a sip of beer or wine - in fact I think that my mom thought that by giving us a taste of alcohol at home that we wouldn't go out looking for it elsewhere. I hated wine when I first started drinking. I thought it smelled bad and tasted even worse. Slowly however, I grew to truly appreciate a good bottle of wine and even more so with a superb meal!
The same was true for coffee. Once we hit our early teens, if we wanted a cup of coffee, we could have it although there would definitely be commentary from one of the critics. If it wasn't either of my parents, then it was surely going to come from one of the sibs. It wasn't however, until I moved out to go to U of T that I really began to drink coffee - more for it's ability to make my eyes peel open in the morning than for any sort of real enjoyement. The more I drank of it the more it grew on me. Now of course it could have had something to do with the fact that there was really more sugar and cream than there was coffee, but that's beside the point really!
About half-way through my pregnancy, once food didn't repulse me so much anymore, I found myself really, really missing coffee. I think however that I missed the ritual of coffee. I missed getting up in the morning, pressing that button and having the kitchen fill with the delightful smell of morning - of fresh brewed coffee. I think it was at that same time that I realized that really, coffee drinking is something like smoking. It's as much an actual need to fulfill the morning or the weekend ritual as it is about actually liking what's in your mug. How many people get up on the weekend, pour a cup of coffee and curl up with the paper? OK, I don't get to read a real paper anymore, but I do get to have the coffee and I usually get to look at a couple of flyers while bumbum rushes around us trying to rip the the papers right out of our hands.
But I get to have my coffee and now and I understand why my parents enjoyed their mugs of black sludge. It wasn't necessarily the taste (I hope!) or the smell or the delicious warmth of the mug on a snowy Saturday in November but it was about the ritual and I'm sure that the caffine jolt didn't go unnoticed either! And now, in the world of lattes and non-fat tazo chai drinks, I think that I appreciate a good cup of coffee even more. In fact, Fridays are my treat day where not only do I get to have my morning coffee, but I get to buy a delicious latte from Second Cup as well. Life doesn't get much better than that!
Friday, here I come!
No comments:
Post a Comment