now i’m a believer

I’ve always felt a strong dislike for coffee. As a youngster, I often wondered why on earth adults found it pleasant to drink the stuff. It seemed to me one “acquired taste” no one should ever try to acquire. When I came to college, all this changed. Frequently cold and mildly sleep deprived, I’ve spent the past three years of my life trying to force my taste buds to enjoy (or at least tolerate) this helpful drink. Most of my attempts have consisted of masking the bitter taste by filling nifty travel mugs with concoctions of coffee flavors that sound good mixed with copious amounts of highly flavored creamers. Unfortunately, six ounces of creamer per cup has never sat well in my stomach and feeling warm from the hot drink was rarely worth making myself sick for the rest of the day. Sometimes I would try sticking to Chai with Espresso in it, but the Espresso tasted too much like coffee, so I eventually nearly gave up all together my pursuit of the convenience and inexpensiveness of coffee.

About two months ago, everything changed. My beautiful, smart, trendy, coffee-loving apartment mate introduced me to the French Press. She made me some coffee from it, and I instantly wholeheartedly and genuinely loved coffee for the first time in my life. I didn’t think smooth, rich coffee full of flavor was possible without the bitterness. I thought bitterness was the flavor of coffee. I have now become an avid French pressed coffee evangelist. I use about one tenth of the creamer I used to, and I can even handle drinking coffee that isn’t pressed, simply because I know how great that flavor is when you really get down to it.

Now that I’ve found I love coffee (or at least am on the road to loving coffee), my goal is to do so in moderation. I am simply thankful for the chance to finally enjoy this drink and be on my way to becoming a well-rounded adult.