 |
Coffee.
I remember brewing up some instant one day when I had to get up early to make it to the track meet bus. Coffee was warm and supposedly a wake-up tonic, so I made some.
Looking back, I think I'd unknowingly made decaf that morning, but it was warm and made me feel a little grown up.
When I began working as a busgirl in a hotel restaurant, coffee flowed in unlimited amounts. That was where I discovered the fully-loaded version, with just a touch of cream. The increase in my table-cleaning efficiency was notable after that first cuppa. In fact, once we'd closed for the evening, busboy Jimmy and I would put our feet up for a while and enjoy a cup or two. Then we'd hit the dining room with a vengeance.
Later on, I transferred from the restaurant to the front desk where I pulled the occasional graveyard shift.
Coffee.
When I was in college (the first time) I had this little aluminum stove-top percolator. I would load it up every evening so all I had to do was click the burner on in the morning to get my fresh-perked on before classes. Magnum thought that very efficient of me, so much that he snapped that pic of me and the percolator in the kitchen of our college apartment. He's easily impressed.
While I was pregnant, I'd have lucid coffee fantasies that continued through the nursing months.
At one point, I thought, hmm... am I a slave to coffee? Just to check, I stopped drinking it for a good month or so. The result?
NO problem. It's more of a habit, really, than a true addiction. I don't NEED it. I think I just like the ritual of preparing it, whether in the percolator, the automatic, or my coffee press. Every now and then, I do the coffee abstinence thing, just to make sure. What gets me through it? Tea.
I prefer tea. Real tea - green, black, orange pekoe, whatever - not a bunch of herbs thrown together and falsely named "tea".
I know I could go on happily existing without coffee, although I might miss it a little. Take my tea, though, and things WILL get ugly. Just so you know.
---------------------------------
Linking up with Mama Kat this week for a three-way! Choose your poison:
1.) September 29th is National Coffee day. How do you like your cup?
2.) What were you blogging about last year at this time? How have things changed?
4.) Throwback time! Share an old photo and tell us about it.
24 comments:
I'll take coffee over tea almost anyday, but when I'm sick, I somehow find the taste of coffee utterly disagreeable.
I love the spell of coffee! I used to drink it in the morning, but now I'm onto herbal coffee instead. I do need to have that hot cup of sumpin-sumpin in the morning.
I COULD give up coffee, but it's my favorite part of waking up, so I don't WANT to give it up. And I'm real particular about which cup I use and how high I fill it and even when I fill it. But I'm NOT addicted.
That picture of you is too cute! Can you believe we used to wear those high waisted jeans? My uniform pants are like that and I feel like I can't breathe. I pay big bucks to have the crotch taken in so I can wear them low.
I don't like coffee when I'm sick either. Maybe because we want to just lay around when we're sick?
Herbal coffee? That's a thing? Off to google...
If I'm having breakfast in a restaurant, I must have coffee, and I don't like restaurant tea unless it's an Asian restaurant. Hmmm... particular?
Those jeans! I know! Is there some correlation between high-waisted jeans and big hair?
I second the "cute" comment, above! Also, the jeans! I read recently that [shudder] they're making a comeback.
I started drinking coffee relatively late -- in my mid-30s. It was in Italy, of all places, and my first experience was an espresso. Yum! All the sugar *might've* helped make it palatable. :)
It's more than that with me. I have a positive aversion to it when I'm sick, but drink it all day long when I'm well.
Say it isn't so, re: the jeans!
And your first coffee experience was an espresso?! I'm tempted to make an analogy, but I won't.
hahahaha - I am picking up what you're laying down, Abby!
I never drank coffee regularly until - I dunno - about 10 years ago. I drink one cup a day, with hazelnut flavored creamer. Then I don't really need or want it after that one. So the Keurig was the greatest invention since sliced bread for me.
Tea? Not a fan.
My god how cute is that top photo! Coffee? If it tasted like it smelled, oh YEAH. I didn't start drinking coffee until after some years on the fire department. I think it was a requirement, but I took a beating over it. 1/3 cup was sugar. 1/3 was Creamora, and only 1/3 was coffee. THAT STUFF IS BITTER!!! As for tea, I hate it, and especially when it's hot. My gag reflex kicks in.
COFFEE. Yeah. I don't care who knows it, I like my COFFEE. Your pic of the younger you is cute but you look even better now. Fun seeing it.
I don't drink coffee, but I tried stopping tea for a while. Eeks! I decided to admit addiction and give up the caffeine withdrawal headaches. Cute toads :)
I've heard nice things about the Keurig, but have only played with one in our lawyer's office - not sure I'd dedicate home counter space to one.
And I've got nothing against people who don't like tea. All the more for me!
Okay, another one for Team Coffee!
Coffee abstinence is easy. Give up tea? Hate to admit it, but I'd be a wreck!
'Member the truckstop we'd stop at for breakfast on the way to the Big City Mall? That's where I had my first cuppa. Probably liked the warmth moreso than the taste; that, and kinda felt a little bit more grown up being a teenager....
Years later, I showed up for a tour in the Pacific Northwest & was taken aback by the tough-looking, BDU-wearing military personnel lined up at the coffee kiosk ordering their half-caf-caramel-macchiatto-w/a-touch-of-Madagascar-cinnamon-latte-frappa-mochachinos -- Geez! But that tour turned us into coffee snobs, too (home of Starbucks, after all!). I am now fully caffeinated.
"Split-shot Americano w/a bit of room over here, please -- chop chop!"
You betcha I remember the old truckstop (it's nothing but a husk now). Good coffee back in the day.
Honestly, I've yet to really take to Starbucks and the like. Around here we have "Pikes Perk", ha. Apparently you can take this girl outta the truckstop, but you can't take the truckstop outta this girl.
LOVE that photo! I can't do tea and only started drinking coffee in the last 10 years or so. Now I'm a slave to it and I wonder why in the world I didn't start the addiction when I was in college...so many late nights studying!
College without coffee?!? Amazing!
I've been drinking coffee since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. Actually, I used to bug my parents for it when I was young and mom relented and gave me some with "a little milk". Actually, I think it was 90% milk and 10 % coffee with sugar thrown in for good measure. Eventually I worked my way up to full strength version but I never gave up on the creamer/milk until when I went did my walkabout in college and was camping near Santa Fe. Ran out of creamer and had to take it black. After that, there was no going back.
I've drank coffee from all over the globe. My favorite was in Germany - very strong, robust. And that does NOT include Army coffee. What they served there was sometimes criminal.
I used to drink it all day and I would have to admit I was slightly hooked. The only times I realized how much I needed coffee was when I went to Philmont and did cold turkey for 12 days. Literally I was NOT a happy camper. After my surgery a few years back, I weaned myself down to two cups in the morning. More of a habit than a fix, still, the occasional mornings I miss my cup o' joe, things do tend to move slowly.
Ahhhh. Sounds like it's time for another one.
Tea for me. Like you, black or green; though I succumb to the herbal at night if I just have to have a hot drink.
What a conversation here! It's amazing how life can revolve around a beverage. During my summer/September absence, I've missed you and your cronies. I think of us as the "Abby Fan Club." :)
Post a Comment