I first started drinking coffee my freshman year of college. I was 18 and in a totally new environment and one of my new friends that I met in my dorm liked to walk over to our campus coffee shop. Not wanting to be a dud (or order hot tea in New Orleans in August) I found a frozen coffee concoction that came with a lot of syrup and sweeteners that I could stomach. (To this day, when I’m back in New Orleans I have to get a frozen granita for old times sake from PJ’s Coffee). Then we started venturing off campus, and if we happened to stop for coffee at Starbucks instead of PJ’s I needed something to order that didn’t give away the fact that I was trying my best to cover up the taste of the coffee.
Enter a mocha, filled with chocolate and milk and enough other “stuff” that I could choke down a cup. Eventually, over time, I began to enjoy the mocha, the rich flavors, the boost of caffeine. I even went to the coffee shop on my own, proudly ordering my large 2% milk…mocha.
Cool I wasn’t. Or at least a cool coffee drinker.
Somehow though, through a few mixed up orders and a summer of tiny Italian cappuccinos at a restaurant I worked at, I began to enjoy the taste of coffee. No more masking agents, I just started ordering lattes, if and when I wanted something sweet I’d go crazy and get a vanilla latte – always with 2% milk though, I never could abide by that skim nonsense. After law school and the bar exam my spending money become nonexistent and I began brewing pots of coffee at home that I’d doctor up with Coffeemate and other completely unnatural ‘creamers’ that I claimed to like, despite their ingredient list that rivaled Spam for grossness.
Then the heavens parted and the angels sang and B and I got a Keurig at one of our wedding showers. Suddenly I didn’t need to make an entire pot of coffee and I began reading the ingredient list on my coffee creamer and realizing I was probably pickling my insides with it – so I stopped buying it. I was now tasked with finding something to mix into my coffee, to add some depth to my brew, without adding fake sugar (or other flavors) and not regular milk because I don’t like cold milk in hot coffee (and I don’t have the patience to steam my own). After a few failed attempts at some coconut milk creamer from Whole Foods and a small venture into soy milk (turns out I’m not willing to risk some of the health issues that can come with consumption of soy) I finally found my answer: almond milk, unsweetened. Preferably the kind in the refrigerated section, not the shelf stable boxes and my favorite is from Trader Joe’s.
And there you have it. My evolution from a mocha drinker to someone who makes their own glorious mug of coffee every morning, topped with almond milk and drunk with my eyes half open, half closed. It is my morning routine, to shower and then pad on out to the kitchen before the sun comes up and make my little cup of happiness. Into a blue Starbucks mug it goes, my collection always growing (but harder to find these days) where it becomes the staple of my morning.
How about you? Coffee or tea? How do you take it?
I love both coffee and tea (although I am particular bordering on obsessive about properly brewed tea (which comes from having grown up with an Irish step-mother, I think) – so I never order hot tea in a restaurant or coffee shop. I brew tea at home more frequently than I make coffee, but that is because my husband is the person responsible for making coffee in our house.
My husband is a coffee snob and has a coffee roaster and orders green coffee beans from and then he roasts them himself, and I will say the coffee he makes every morning is to die for. I usually heat a cup of 1% milk in the microwave for a minute in a giant mug, and then pour in the coffee and two packets of splenda.
The best coffee I’ve ever had, anywhere, hands down, is Vietnamese coffee with sweetened condensed milk. It take a long time to brew but is very, very worth it.
I too use almond milk. On most days that’s all I need. When I need a treat, I fix it up with a very small amount of Stevia, a little vanilla bean, and heavy cream. Yum!
I, too, love my Keurig. I’m going to need to try the almond milk. I use way too much of the flavored chemically creamer stuff.
Aww, I drink my morning joe from a San Diego Starbucks mug.
(Half & half and three sugar cubes is how I take mine.)