(T-Minus 9) A Thankful Ten Days Until Christmas: Coffee

Day -9: I am thankful for coffee

What’s your crack cocaine? (Hey, perhaps it’s crack cocaine itself, in which you might want to consider rehab . . . )

For me, well, I guess it’s coffee.

Now mind you, I’m not actually addicted to caffeine.  Yet, anyway.  I didn’t start drinking coffee until my last year of graduate school. And it was mostly because I was living in Spain, and that’s what people did in Spain to take a break. Seven, oh, eight times a day. “Un café con leche,” we’d declare.  A cheap €1 later, the small espresso and milk drink would come my way. Along with a gigantic packet of sugar. My friends and I would then proceed to sit in the café and chat for a while before returning to class 30-40 minutes later. We weren’t too big on the whole attending class thing.

Drinking coffee in the United States is a completely different experience. Espresso drinks are $4 a pop, and a good number of the population is still drinking ventis and mochas and deluxe-extra-shot-vanilla-skim-soy-lattes. Whatever those are.

(Pet peeve: I don’t understand the “tall,” “grande,” and “venti” used in Starbucks vernacular. Small, Medium, and Large are perfectly normal descriptors, are they not?? Baristas always give me a withering look if I happen to order the “small coffee.” “Tall?” They correct me. No! Yes! I mean . . . Augh!)

In any case, the coffee culture is something I’ve slowly become acquainted with. A hot mug of steaming coffee is something I happily make in the morning, cupping it between frigid, stiff fingers.  I recently acquired a drip to drip my own coffee. I swear I’m not a snob; it just tastes so much better when dripped. French press is just not the same. My next goal is to get my own hand grinder. I share my roommate’s coffee grinder, but I want my own!!

Locally, we have a large selection of cafes to choose from, with many more types of coffee to whet any caffeine addict’s appetite. My current obsession is with Blue Bottle Coffee. I’m slowly making my way through their different roasts. I prefer to go to the Blue Bottle located in the San Francisco Heath Ceramics Showroom. Good coffee, gorgeous ceramicware, and an awesome space to read/work/play in. Don’t go. I want to keep it all to myself.

(The photos above are from the Oakland Blue Bottle location, W.C. Morse Café. Had to get my coffee fix before the drive to Yosemite Valley.)

Coffee is my pick-me-up, my source of warmth after waking and making it to a chilly office, and break from the daily grind.  It’s an excuse to eat a sweet and spicy gingerbread molasses cookie that pairs oh-so-perfectly with the bitter creaminess of coffee.  Today I am thankful for coffee.  What are you thankful for?

Previous thankful days:

10. San Francisco Living