At the age of 15, I rose from sleep late on a Saturday morning in my best friend's basement bedroom. We ascended to the kitchen on the narrow spiral staircase I had raced up and down uncountable times. Then he asked me the question that in retrospect paved my destiny in more ways than I could ever have fathomed at such a young age. “Yes! I want some coffee!” I had never (drank/drunk)?? coffee in my young, sheltered life. I remember watching him prepare our brew on his father’s generic Mr. Coffee auto drip machine. I was impressed by the gurgling and popping sounds it made. I know there was so much sugar in that first cup that it would probably be undrinkable to me now. I know the same about how much cream I used. I was told the coffee was Colombian Supremo roasted just up the road at a funky, local coffee shop.
Love at first taste! I know I had a second cup that morning. I loved the way it tasted.....made me feel.
It was not long before I, like a lot of thirsty curious teens in the 1995 Suburbs USA, made my way to that funky coffee shop to start my journey in coffee and its culture.
What happenstance that my love affair with coffee started on that fateful Saturday.
What about you? Do you remember that first cup?
My first cup came at Perkins at about the same time (mid-nineties), but it wasn't a great experience. Actually, I pretty much hated it. But, it was the cool thing to drink back then, so it eventually grew on me.
ReplyDeleteSince I lived in an area of PA that didn't have any funky coffee shops, Perkins was about the best I could hope for. It wasn't until the day I moved to NC in 2000 that I stumbled onto my first "real" cup of coffee (at Bean Traders). I was in love. Until then, coffee was something to drink to keep you awake. It quickly became an addiction.
My husband finished his glorious grad school career at Duke and we have since moved back to that same surprisingly urban area of PA. The area finally got its first Starbucks about 5 years ago, if that tells you how behind the coffee times we are. Just a few weeks ago we finally stumbled across a great little privately-owned coffee shop where the beans are roasted on site, and it made our day, week, and month. We are finally catching up!
My hometown similarly lacked real coffee shops except for the one that supposedly only gay people went to, and thus, I didn't hear of it until much later. When we got our second shop, I decided to try this coffee stuff as a high school junior and had a Black Forest mocha. It was heavenly and it got me through many a school site council meeting at my high school. I may have (did) get my fellow student representative hooked on them too.
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