Feb

7

Coffee, Tea, or …

Filed Under Babbling, Writings/Rants 

So, friends, what’s your brew of choice?

I was thinking about this a bit yesterday. I was talking with a friend about tea and tea parties and in doing so, I mentioned that I have a whole shelf of tea that Sarah and I never really drink. Seriously. We’ll go to Teavanna and get a cup made for us, or we’ll buy a few ounces of loose tea, and then we’ll never really drink it. And especially now that I’m sick, I should be drinking more of it. Its good tasting and good on the throat.

Mostly when I drink tea, I find myself leaning towards something in the black or the red realms when I’m having a hot tea. I like a lot of rooibos blends, as well as the occasional yerba maté based latte. When I’m having a black tea, I’m all about having a good Earl Grey or Chai. Matter of fact, if you were to open my pantry right now, you’d find about 3 different varieties of rooibos, Earl Grey, and chai all in there. Those three I lean towards the most. There’s something that’s smooth and well done about all of them. Occasionally I’ll have a green tea, but only if it’s at a real oriental restaurant or some sort of pre-made infused blend. For cold teas, well, I’ll usually get one of the fruit pre-blended ones from Nestea or Lipton that’s already bottled and good to go. And even though I was born out in Utah and raised in the South to the point that I know and love my sweet tea? Well, I’ve been weaning myself off of that teat. I already eat enough biscuits and gravy to make up for that one…

Coffee is a different story. I used to get the McDonald’s large coffees when I met up with the SHARC–that’s Spring Hill Amateur Radio Club–group when I was 17 years old, and I’d add to that 6 packets of sugar (not sweetener, sugar) and 3 half and halfs. I didn’t like coffee, I liked sweet mud. As I got older and lazier, I stopped adding stuff to my coffee and started drinking it black. I learned slowly that you could tell the difference in brews with black coffees and that there was something etherally beautiful about the wisps that crossed the surface of coffee remaining in my cup as I withdrew it from my lips and swallowed its bitter darkness. I drank it and watched those wisps across my coffee, transfixed by the simplicity and the beauty of it. Try it sometime. You’ll see what I mean.

Though, if I’m not drinking a black regular coffee and I’m at a Starbucks, Natura’s, or Push Play or some other establishment of the sorts? Well, it varies on what I’m in the mood for. On campus, I always get myself a soy chai latte from the library’s Java City, but it can be anything from a hot tea at Natura or Push Play, to a Maté Latte at Natura, to a Green Tea Chai Latte at Push Play, or if I’m at Starbucks, I could always get my regular: Quint Venti Sugar Free Vanilla Latte, Half Whole, Half Soy. It has a bit of a burnt taste to it, but the vanilla flavor and the caffeine shine through and make it beautiful to me. And even when I appear burnt out beyond all anything and I have one of those? You wouldn’t be able to tell. There’s so much caffeine in the drink that my body has no clue what to do with it, so it doesn’t wake me up any more than a can of Surge.

And on that note, I think its time to check my mail because I’ve heard rumors of the pre-release order of Day & Night Driving being mailed already, and it’d be nice to have a clean new 7M3 shirt to wear to campus today.

That, and my chai is done steeping…

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    About The Site


    Thanks for stopping by, folks! My name is Adam J. Cohen, and I'm a guitarist/songwriter in Champaign, IL, recently relocated from Orlando, FL where I'm a UCF grad. Here, you'll find vignettes on my life, setlists and show reviews, and whatever else crosses my mind. Enjoy!