My first experience with coffee

At last night's Homebrew Website Club, we started talking about our first experiences with coffee. Two of us also brewed coffee, live on the call. That was delightful. If you know me, you can guess I was the one that got all this started. My next thought was: why don't I share my first experience with coffee on my blog? Blogging is fun.

Toward the end of primary school (of which the US equivalent would be "middle school"), we studied French expressions. This was to prepare us for modern languages in high school of which French was the first language we would study. I remember the lessons being fun and engaging.

Toward the end of the class, we studied a few words related to food and drink. We had the goal of being able to order something in a cafe in the French language. In our final lesson, the teacher said we could have the food we wanted from a selection of breakfast food he had prepared -- croissants, fruit, and, notably, coffee -- if we could place our "order" in French. The teacher would help us if we got stuck with what we wanted to say, too.

In that class, I recall ordering coffee. This was the first time I had tried coffee. The coffee, which was brewed, was served in a tiny cup. The cup was smaller than an espresso cup. I remember taking a sip and the beverage being too hot for me to drink. I vaguely recall a bitter sensation. I was left with an impression: I don't really like this right now.

Of course, tastes change. Perhaps a year or two later, my dad made me a cup of coffee with Nescafe granules. It was served with milk. I don't recall particularly enjoying the taste. For the years following, my love of tea grew. I had a phase where I would drink instant coffee, but I kept coming back to tea. I loved tea.

In the following years, I would occasionally have the opportunity to go to Starbucks, where I could order a coffee. My go-to order? A cappuccino with cinnamon sprinkled on top. I still have a fondness for that drink. The small of cinnamon brings back good memories of those times being in Starbucks with family, sipping on a coffee after swimming on holiday. I would look forward to those moments for a long time.

Starbucks cappuccinos were arguably my entry point into speciality coffee; the silky foam, the coffee taste that wasn't as dominant as it is in black coffee. I was in love with the coffee; the craft, the experience, the taste.

There was no linear connection between that first experience with coffee -- the primary school si -- and my later experiences. But, journeys are rarely linear, even in the light of hindsight.

What was your first experience with coffee? If you don't drink coffee, I would love to hear your first experience with something else that is personally significant to you. Tea? A favourite artist? A book? If you are inspired by this post, feel free to write a post on your blog. If you write a blog post, let me know. I would love to read what you write.

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