Coffee

Coffee:

Our country seems obsessed with coffee.  There is a coffee house on every corner and many times there's another between those.  The Pook loves the stuff. [1]  You can find it every where.  If a business only gives away one free drink you can bet that drink is coffee.  You get it free when you stay at a hotel, get your oil changed or talk to just about any type of professional.  The bulk of half an aisle in every large grocery stores is devoted to the stuff and yet I think it tastes like sewage.

It's just straight up nasty.

And please don't write me and try to sway me to join the coffee legion with one of these lines:

"But if you tried brand X coffee you would like it."

"You've got to prepare it right.  If you put enough Y and Z in it, it is [insert your favorite high praise adjective here]."

"It's an acquired taste."

Please, do me a favor. [2]

I've tried coffee many times.  It's so prevalent in society that every few years I thinks to myself, "Maybe it's changed.  Maybe I've changed.  I'll try it again."  So I do and then I spend the next five minutes shuddering.

I've tried lots of brands, styles and flavors.  They all smell wonderful.  That's the nasty trick of coffee. It smells divine.  If you catch me when I'm pushing the buggy down that aisle in Publix you'll see me breathing deeply.  The aroma is just so good.

Then you taste it.  If you get a good brand, or a one that has good flavors, that first second can be pretty good, even down right tasty.  Then the back end of the flavor hits your taste buds and it tastes like, to steal a phrase from the Pook, "liquid butt." [3]

Long ago before coffee was everywhere, they used to make coffee flavored ice cream that wasn't actually made with coffee.  If I had to guess, I would say it probably had as much to do with coffee as a hand grenade.  Anyway, that ice cream tasted like the first half of the flavor of coffee.  I rather enjoyed that ice cream.

Now, in the interest of authenticity, coffee flavored ice cream is made with real coffee and thus includes the horrible bad taste that comes after the good. [4]

So to all of you who swear I would like it if I just tried Brand X, unless your coffee is made with something other than coffee, don't waste my time.

As for the, 'you've got to prepare it right' people, I've heard this one many times too.  Someone once told me this, "If you put enough cream and sugar in it, you can hardly taste the coffee."  If you've got to add enough other things to mask the drink's flavor, why are you drinking it?

But just so we're 100% clear here, even if your "cup of coffee" is actually half cream and a quarter sugar, you may completely kill off the first 'good' half of the flavor of coffee, but that nasty after taste is always still there.

And if you are drinking it for the caffeine, in this day and age there are plenty of other better tasting places to get your fix.

Last we come to the "It's an acquired taste."

What kind of stupid argument is that?

I'm willing to bet earthworms, mountain oysters and pickled dung are acquired tastes too, but I don't see too many people doing what it takes to become a fan of them on Facebook.

Why force yourself to drink something that you think tastes bad just so one day you can fool your brain into liking it?

I know.  I know.  I'm in the minority here.  The planet's already been brainwashed and coffee is king. Long live the king.  Just don't expect me drink it.

Coffee: D+ [5]

[1] - Not quite as much as me, but it seems a close second at times.
[2] - Not really, it's a British phrase.
[3] - It's how she describes grapefruit.
[4] - Oh well, I'll stick with mint chocolate chip.  The kind with the big chips if you please.
[5] - The smell keeps me from giving it an "F".