NTKOG #26: The kind of girl who can’t make it through her morning without that extra-hot, ultra-strong black cup o’ java.
I am: both immune to caffeine and hyper-sensitive to acidity in food. I’m talking “can’t even smell a tomato without my eyes watering” sensitive.
I am not: able to vow with certainty that coffee is a scientifically proven toxin. But I drank half a cup of it at a church function once when I was twelve and spent the next fifty-odd hours doubled over in pain. Guess I should have mixed in a little holy water.
The Scene: Corporate America. Thursday morning. There are doughnuts in the breakroom, everyone’s already made the requisite morning non-jokes. Yes, we have hit the dreaded mid-morning lull. Maybe it is my sense of adventure, or maybe just the fact that I haven’t slept a full night since August, but I decide the time has come for my first-ever cup of coffee. Mock-casually I saunter to the breakroom. Who, me? What, I drink the stuff all the time! Coffee, you know, java, joe — damnit, TKOG, keep cool!
The office I work in is roughly seven hundred and fifty times nicer than my apartment. Each office is the size of a $900/month city-outskirt studio; the art on the walls has do-not-touch barricades; for a staff of thirty people, there are THREE top-of-the-line coffee/espresso machiens — the space-age kind that single-brew cups or shots out of those futuristic little pods. And oh god the walls of coffee, in every flavor you could imagine. It is a barista brothel.
I skim through the pods and select the ultra-minimalist Double Fudge Walnut Ripple (no, sadly, the pod did not come with a complimentary pink-sequined mug or whipped cream dispenser) and, with careful nonchalance, brew a cup. Walked it to my desk and sit there, pointedly ignoring it through all fifty entries on my google reader. Don’t want it to burn my tongue, I think. Don’t want it to burn my heart.
Once the situation was cooled down to, y’know, approximately human core temperature, I lifted it up. And wouldn’t you know it — it actually smelled kind of okay. Kind of great, even. Didn’t singe my nose hair at all! Tilted back my first sip and .. nothing. I mean, okay, rich buttery top notes witha relentless pound of chalky bitterness underneath. But it did not feel, as I always assumed it would based on my long-ago experience, like a giant gulp of battery acid.
I ended up more or less chugging the cup, and, as of press time, am barely dead.
The Verdict: Hey coffee! I’m not afraid of you anymore! I didn’t love the taste and still don’t understand why every dang dude on the T murmurs sweet nothings into his morning cuppa, but nor do I any longer look on coffee addicts with pity and curiosity.
At last count: No apocalyptic gastro-intestinal meltdown (whew. I feared this would turn into a TMI Thursday); no spacey caffeine-high jitters; no chance I have been converted into a lifetime coffee drinker. But this does give credence to my theory that I should retaste all the foods I think I dislike at least once a year to keep expanding my palate.
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be warned, coffee is an amazing and terrible addiction…
haha, I’m not planning on taking it up full-time — my grandmother had terrible kidney problems that she blamed on caffeine, and thus ruined it for me forever — but hope to at least acquire enough of a taste that I can enjoy mocha-flavored baked goods!
Take note I’m not a doctor (but my sister is a microbiologist and pharmacologist). Your gran’s kidney problems could have been exascerbated by too much caffeine because it’s a diuretic, but it’s more likely that the base cause was not drinking sufficient fluid bulk. If you are the kind of girl who sips water all day I think you’ll be ok.
Further to this; You also find significant caffeine in tea (you make it weaker, but it contains a higher concentration of caffeine for a given mass of bean/leaf as applicable), and most sodas except European recipe lemonade sodas.
I’m definitely not a coffee drinker in any way either. I kind of hate it actually…I’m glad your digestive system didn’t hate you for it :)
I can take coffee or leave it (but mostly take it :D ). What I can say is that the liquid supplied by most churches as “coffee” bears no resemblance to a decent cup of instant, never mind the sort of custom-brewed filter coffee that a modern office coffee maching is capable of making!
Oh and that “Double Fudge Walnut Ripple” is not coffee!! ;) Coffee comes in 3 flavours/strengths, regular filter, espresso and ristretto!
For me it’s just more of a tradition than something I need or want- it’s comforting.
Ick is what I say to coffee. I was in the cafeteria in high school one day eating my lunch when something went down the wrong tube or whatever and I started coughing, I needed something-anything-to drink and some guy gave me his coffee. He had so much sugar in it that it was SOLID coming out of the cup. Actual solid strings of sugar. Oh, it makes my stomach turn just thinking about it. I never liked coffee to begin with, but that just really turned me off. I’m an energy drink drinker myself.
All I can say is you are lucky! My digestive system and coffee definitely don’t get along… but ever since I made the mistake of trying Starbucks iced espresso, i have made a point of saying Eff you to my bowels, pretty much daily. And its making me broke. Im gonna have to either give up coffee or wine one of these days. So long, coffee.
Brave girl! I’m not sure I’d be able to get a whole cup down. Maybe if they could quadruple the fudge . . .
After hearing the phrase “yuppie gush” to describe a regular coffee drinker’s body’s reaction to coffee, I haven’t quite been able to look at coffee drinking the same way.
That look usually involves giggling like an idiot.
I’m a caffeine FIEND but as I hate both coffee AND tea I get my fix from soft drinks. I salute you even giving coffee a go. The very smell makes me want to vom.
You may be my God, I honestly could not push my boundaries the way you are.
Weird how it took the coffee one to get me to admit that…
Yes, I also don’t drink tea! I’m just not a big caffeine person! I used to drink a twelve-pack of Diet Coke a day, then my affections wavered to diet grapefruit soda, and I’ve been drinking caffeine-free ever since. Everyone told me I’d get terrible withdrawal headaches, but honestly I’ve never noticed any effects — good, bad, or other — from caffeine. I guess I’m immune!
Also, dude, thank you so much for your kind words about my little project! I’m having one of the best times of my life so far, pushing boundaries all over the place. And weirdly I’ve found that it’s the little ones (drinking coffee, talking to strangers, sticking up for myself in retail situations, etc) that are harder to do — and more rewarding! — than the big, outrageous ones. I’m going to have to write a post one of these days about all the little changes I’ve noticed in my life, but after even only a month, I really do feel like I’m a slightly different, slightly better person!
I told myself if I could drink coffee black, I would allow myself to drink it. Once you add all the cream and sugar etc. then you’re getting into trouble, because that tastes divine.
So if I NEED it, I can do it, about half a cup will usually get me to where I have to be energy wise.
But I am a Barista, so I do know how to make the most ridiculous and delicious coffee treats!