How did you start drinking coffee? Who introduced you? Can you remember your first coffee?
I've got a fun story.
I made it through uni without coffee. My first job was out in a country hospital where I was the only public Occupational Therapist for a whole region. It meant a huge variety of tasks, something that I loved. One of those was doing home visits occasionally, especially for patients who had some kind of disability or accident and needed modifications to their house or lifestyle or advice about how to make changes so that they could live more independently.
This one home visit I did was a long country drive. It must have been a couple of hours from my home base. This was a visit for someone who was in hospital in the city (I hadn't seen the patient, just been referred them by a city-based OT). So I met with the patient's family at this isolated house. It was a shocking place to walk into. A hoarder! There was only a narrow path between piles of junk in much of the house. And it was filthy. The light switches had one small place of white on them: where you put your finger to turn it on or off. The rest was long-term caked-on grime.
I did my rounds: checking the bathroom and toilet and various access points. Taking measurements and making notes as I went.
When I was done they had a cup of coffee and a biscuit ready for me—good old country hospitality. No one asked if I drank coffee and they didn't offer anything else. I hadn't seen the mug before it was filled with instant coffee, but I'm sure it probably wasn't the cleanest.
I drank it. What else could I do?
I didn't get ill, but I also wasn't instantly converted to coffee. However, from that point on, I began to drink coffee—instant coffee mostly. Actually most of the coffee I had back then was hospital-grade International House coffee that was provided at work. Makes me shudder now! Drip coffee was the stuff of coffee shops only back then in the 90s. I didn't own a coffee maker for some time after that. In fact I have only owned one coffee maker and seldom used it, because I married a non-coffee drinker and the coffee maker mostly got passed around other people in Australia while we've been in Japan.
I use a 100 yen plastic drip-brew maker that sits on top of my mug. But I love to go to coffee shops and my favourite is a cafe latte. Even better is a cosy cafe with a view. And top of the list is a cosy cafe with a friend who has time to chat.
So that's my story. How about you? Are you a coffee drinker? How did you start?
Starting on instant -- bold! I had a friend who told me she added hot chocolate to coffee and then kept using less and less chocolate until she could drink coffee alone -- and it worked for me, too. You are brave :)
ReplyDeleteI never drank coffee much at all until I was in my mid twenties. I used to think it tasted disgusting, until I had a mocha while I was working as a librarian in Perth and I was sold. The cafe at the uni where I worked made brilliant mochas and I became an addict when my library colleagues and I would go to the cafe for morning tea. But I would still only have one a day...and sometimes try to go without any. I've definitely started drinking more coffee since becoming a mother; it's the only thing that helps with the sleep deprivation.
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