Learning to Enjoy Coffee

I have never drank a cup of coffee in my life, if you don't count that one time my manfriend Jordan made me this fantastic Chocolate-and-Peanut Butter Mocha Smoothie that tasted like a giant Reese's Pieces cup.

I've tried coffee many times, giving it tentative sips here and there, but never committing to chugging a whole pot of the liquid cocaine, which is evidently what it takes to develop a taste for the stuff.

I want to like coffee, first of all because it's the single-most readily available drink at practically every gathering (after water), and the Mennonite in me just hates to see all that free coffee go unclaimed. Coffee is also a great drink for diabetics, since it doesn't necessarily REQUIRE sugar, and coffee in-and-of itself doesn't have carbohydrates that would require an insulin shot. I also love the way my church sits down at potlucks, after which the older generations strike up pleasant conversations over a cup of coffee and a slice of pie.

For many years of my childhood, I couldn't even stand the scent of coffee. Now that I've gotten old and my sense of smell has dimmed with time, I find it to be pleasant, which is a great evil considering that something that tastes so rancid could be disguised with such a fragrant aroma. The smell/taste mismatch is like biting a large chunk out of a candle, only to find that it DOESN'T taste like "Meadow Showers" at all.

Spoiler alert: It tastes like wax. If you have the candle lit for 4 hours before sampling it, you get a fine example of what hot coffee feels like inside your mouth.

Is there a word for "expecting one taste but getting another"? When I asked Mr. Google, all he could tell me was that my search involved wine-tasting, which makes sense.

Discerning Patron: "Um, I'd like to try a glass of wine. Might as well start with the best. How about a glass of 1966 Chateau Lafite?"
Waiter Dressed as a Penguin: "A wonderful choice, sir! I trust that you'll LOVE it. Here you are."
Discerning Patron: *sip* "BLAUGH! It appears that this beautifully-named bottle of wine has turned."
Waiter Dressed as a Penguin: "What! What do you mean?"
Discerning Patron: "The flavor is horrendous."
Waiter Dressed as a Penguin: "But, ah, you don't approve of the subtle hues and slight woody flavor?"
Discerning Patron: "No. It tastes like that one time I had a throat sore and had to gargle vinegar."

I searched for "waiter with wine clip art" and found this photo. Thank you, Internet, for thinking just like me.

I find coffee to be the same experience. There are many wondrous flavors with exotic names that never quite match the taste I conjure up in my imagination before trying them. For instance, "Jamaican' Me Crazy" coffee instills a word-picture of tangy, fruity, sweet coffee that causes you to crave more. Instead, you get Slightly Different-Tasting Coffee.

This is not a "Flavors of Every Food in the World" chart. This is a Coffee Flavor Chart, which is what happens when you give coffee to the person who invented color palettes. My curiosity has been piqued, and I now desire to witness coffee that can be summed up as tasting 'Carbony', 'Ashy', and 'Charred'.

When I was younger, my sister Shelley tried her best to grow me up and get me to like coffee. Her methods for getting others to acquire a certain taste were hiding that flavor and surprising you with it. Like that one time she offered me some chocolate-covered peanuts which were actually chocolate-covered espresso beans. I grabbed a small handful and popped a few into my mouth. The shocking disparity in Taste Expected vs. Taste Received was about the same as if she'd have offered me some "pie" and "chips" but served me cow dung.

Hey kids! Let's play "Spot the Difference." Can you tell me which of these are a delicious peanutty snack? Be careful: if you choose the wrong one, you'll have a burning, overpowering coffee flavor embedded in your taste buds for 24 hours. 
 
I was at the Kalona Chamber of Commerce Luncheon today, where I felt vastly under-dressed in my work clothes amongst the movers and shakers of Kalona, who were dressed nicely and seemed to know which spoon to use for the soup. Steaming canisters of coffee were passed around, to which I gave my standard "No thanks, I'm too young to drink coffee." answer. One lady smiled and replied "I suppose we'll accept that answer." while another one declared "You're never too young to drink coffee!" So I admitted that I just couldn't get used to the taste. "How do you begin to like coffee?" I asked.

"Just drink it for a while." One man offered.

"Try flavored coffees, like hazelnut." A young woman said.

"Just drink it black. Plain coffee is the way to go." Said one woman, who you wouldn't have suspected of having anything wrong with her at first glance but evidently had no taste buds.

"Dunkin' Donuts coffee is the best. It's not as bitter as regular coffee. Try some of that, but eat a donut with it." Said another man.

"Home-brewed coffee is the best. It's not as bitter." Said one helpful woman. 

"No, I really like Starbucks coffee. It's the best." A lady commented.

"Do you have to get the mocha frappuccino with extra soy foam and caramel?" I asked the Starbucks lady.


"Nope, their plain coffee is really good." She replied.


"Take a cup, fill it half full of sugar, and then just top off the rest of the cup with coffee." Said one young man. I thought I detected a twinkle in his eye, but that might have been glaucoma. 

What I gathered from the conversation was that everyone has their own way to adapt to coffee, and it's up to me to figure out what mine is. Perhaps my method will include getting stranded on the side of a mountain in a blizzard with nothing but Instant Coffee packets, which I'll mix with a little snow and eat in order to keep from falling asleep and dying of hypothermia.

From what I've observed, it appears that after a person has acquired the taste of coffee, any and every type of coffee automatically becomes drinkable. That completely baffles me. Many times, upon consuming the beverage, a person will decide they don't quite like it as much as another type. Does that thought not surface until the end of the cup? "I don't really like this brownie, but I need to eat the entire pan before I make a decision." Being able to drink any coffee is equivalent to owning a car that's able to run on gasoline, diesel, kerosene, liquid petroleum, crude oil, and/or corn syrup. 

I suppose that's not terribly far-fetched. Ever since the day a man accidentally put diesel in his gasoline-burning car and gummed up the engine, companies have been dreaming up vehicles that run on multiple fuels. This car (still being developed by Brazillian designer Obvio and Auto company Lotus) is a "Tribrid" that runs on Bio-ethanol (fancy term for french fry grease), natural gas (CNG), or electricity. Obvio, how are you still in business? At least they're trying.

And I'll certainly keep trying. Perhaps some day I'll groggily wake up, stumble into the kitchen, pour myself a stiff belt of burnt, ground-up bean juice and realize I've been drinking coffee for years, not knowing how I began to even like the stuff.

How do you like your coffee?