Coffee!!!
November 18th, 2008I love coffee. The taste, the smell, the subtle difference in flavors between types. On my list of dream jobs would definitely be tasting or working with and around coffee. In my home, growing up and now, there is always a pot of coffee on or ready to be made. Come to my house and the first thing I’ll ask you is if you want a cup of coffee.
My dad use to brag that he got all of us kids started drinking coffee by the time we were 3. Not sure how true that is, but I do remember our “kid coffee”. Coffee heavily laden with milk and heaping spoonfulls of sugar. This same kid coffee I gave to my kid, nieces and nephews as they grew up. I remember in high school drinking coffee for breakfast on my way out the door. Some of my fondest memories of my dad revolved around coffee. How we girls use to scramble to make him a cup. Black, with one small spoonfull of sugar, cooled off with a splash of ice cold water so it was drinkable. Then he’d always make a game out of the spoon… he’d stir his coffee and then touch us on the arm or leg with the hot spoon asking “Is that hot?!”. Sometimes at restraunts he would stir his coffee, then put the spoon in his ice water and see if we still jumped. Thanks to Pavlov we jumped whether it was cold or hot. I think I’ve probably done the same to my son over the years, but with less frequency.
I have some pet peeves when it comes to coffee. I don’t want added flavors. I like my coffee just coffee, no vanilla, no french italian spanish creme brulee chocolatemocha. Until I was in college I drank it straight up black. Then I learned that coffee can leach calcium out of your body so I started putting milk or half and half in it to counter those effects. Another pet peeve I have is buying coffee. When you buy it at these coffee shops littered around town, they all want tips. I’m not getting a freaking meal! It’s just one cup of coffee. You stand in the same place, you don’t come to a table for me, you don’t do anything more than a regular cashier does. Yet you want a tip? How bout get a full restraunt job if you want a tip. It’s bad enough that I’m usually paying through the nose for the cup of coffee as it is! You’re lucky I’m not gulping it down insisting on a free refill like they always use to give coffee drinkers.
Free refills for coffee is like a pair of socks always being a pair. It goes without thinking that if you order a regular cup of coffee in a restraunt, you’re going to get free refills. I remember our broke days in college going to Denny’s and having refill after refill, studying for hours. If I order a coffee and I don’t get refills it effects the tip. Regardless of what meal we had in restraunts growing up, my dad always ordered coffee and water. I have a tendency to do the same.
There are actual health benifits to coffee. When my nephew first started showing signs of asthma, a doctor told me coffee was good for opening up his airways. So every time he weezed, I would pour him a coffee or take him for a latte’. I’m probably very much to blame for his coffee consumption today.
There was also a study I read a few months back about excessive amounts, over 6 cups a day, keeping people from developing diabetes. There’s also another study on the net that claims drinking coffee on an empty stomach before you work out helps increase caloric consumption. It’s already been proven to be a great antioxident. From what I’ve read it could also be the reason why no one in my family has ever had Alzheimer’s. A good website about coffee benifits is coffeescience.org.
Either way, good or bad, I’m a true coffee addict!!! d
