Coffee was first cultivated in Ethiopia, introduced to
Vienna via retreating Turkish armies, and
institutionalized in the US by a mermaid from Seattle.
We describe it with terms like rich, robust, aromatic,
and instant. The smell of the grounds in the can is
comforting. The swirling loops and color changes
caused by adding cream are transfixing.
My first coffee experiments were with my mother’s jar
of instant crystals. As a teenager I drank it at a
coffeehouse in Cleveland Heights. In Boston I had a
tall cup every morning from a chain near my office, in
New York I bought it from a man in a trailer outside
Penn Station, and in France I drank it in smoke filled
cafes. My first cup back in the States this summer was
purchased at a gas station outside Bucyrus. Burning
my tongue with the first sip, then running to the
bathroom 30 minutes after finishing the cup, I love
coffee.
And so, this FlashQuiz asks: What is your
relationship with coffee? How old were you when you
had your first cup? Is it a part of your daily life?
What do you add to it? Where do you drink it?
All responses will be treated with confidentiality.
Click here to
re-read previous FlashQuizes.
I'm attached to coffee now like a needy soul to an abusive lover. I know it makes me puffy and I try to hold off on that cup in the morning, but I'm not completely awake without it. I'm typing this now without any caffiene in my blood. Scary.
ReplyDeleteI started coffee when I met my then boyfriend, now husband Soheil. They start them early on caffiene in the Middle East. Now my three year old has developed a taste for coffee (with cream and sugar, please). One word of advise: Don't give a toddler caffiene on a 10 hour jet trip across the Atlantic.
from Jeanne Burgess ~~
ReplyDeleteWay back around 1959 or so Anne Disrude and I worked as salad girls at the Castle Inn, Put-in-Bay, OH. I suppose I was around 15 years old. We decided that summer that we should/would learn to drink coffee. And we WOULD like it! I decided I may as well learn to like it black without adding sugar or cream like my mother did, so that's what I set out to do. I think maybe Anne added both cream and sugar to hers. I don't know that I drank it except when at work in the evening - after all, it was free there.
In later years (after my kids Tracy, Tanya and Tyrus were born) I "coffee klatched" at Sue Morrow's each morning while our kids played or, later, after I dropped them off at school. Sue always drank hot tea and I had instant coffee. Seemed to think it tasted good then, prefer the real stuff now. I always managed to get home by lunch time to have sandwiches made for the island-wide "everyone home for lunch from noon to 1pm". Well, maybe the kids had to help make the sandwiches sometimes!
Twenty-five years later, AR (after Ray) entered the picture, he made "real" coffee. And many mornings we sat at The Little Galley on the Boardwalk from 8-9am over cups of coffee "watching the island wake up", as we called it. The scenery was beautiful. We looked over the boats at the docks with the monument in the background and at the sailboats anchored in the harbor toward Gibralter Island. Gradually boaters would step off their "yachts" onto the dock and, with towels in hand, walk up to the shower house in the center of the park. Soon dinghies with sailboaters and often a dog on board would motor or row past us to the beach so that they too could visit the shower house. The dogs on board would sprawl over the bow of the dinghy excitely lapping at the water as they watched land getting closer. They could hardly wait to reach land where they could relieve themselves! When the Miller ferry slowly plyed out of the harbor on its way to Middle Bass for the first trip to the mainland, we knew it was time to leave the Boardwalk. Especially since we knew the next activity would be the BFI truck backing onto the dock behind us. If we didn't exit before the big, blue truck arrived, we would be trapped in the narrow roadway to the small parking area and our peaceful start of the day would be ruined with the aroma and noise of the garbage from the night before being picked up. So we always made sure our timing was correct.
Coffee is still a part of my daily life. One cup in the morning after breakfast - can't seem to drink it on an empty stomach. Like Tracy, I seem to need it to give me that extra push to start the day. I enjoy sitting on the deck with a cup of coffee while listening to the birds chirp. And I watch PIB wake up as joggers pass the house on their morning run, a moped goes by driven by a worker hurrying off to work, a golf cart or two pass by. I know PIB is awake when the first bus of the day rumbles past the house full of visitors from the Miller ferry.
Yes, I love coffee just like Tyrus does..and I still drink it black.
Coffee is in the top five of my top ten list of crutches, habits, and escape plans. And that is saying something for coffee as the list includes such heavy hitters as wild turkey, chocolate cake, binge reading, whirlwind road trips, and the dog's valium. I never make it at home--where diet coke is the front runner--because i never get it quite right. But i love to discover it at little cafes, all night diners, and roadside pit stops. And there is nothing like the satisfication of a good BM following a good, rich cup.
ReplyDelete