What was your first experience with the sacred cup of java?
I don’t remember my very first coffee experience, but I do remember one particular cup of coffee during Thanksgiving, when I was maybe a junior or senior in high school. I coolly poured myself a mug after dinner, added the appropriate levels of cream and sugar (read: lots), and sipped in it sophisticated style (or so I thought) along with the mingling adults.
I am aware that many kids in European countries drink coffee from a young age, but I didn’t start until well into my teens. I didn’t feel any real need to drink coffee. Then, again, who really needs to anyway?
I honestly didn’t drink a lot of coffee until the college years. It was one of those things that seemed required when you were pulling an all-nighter studying for the next anthropology exam. Either that, or chocolate-covered espresso beans (drool).
So began a new affinity. I would hesitate to call it an addiction.
Now, I hate to sound old, but… Argh, kids these days!
The Starbucks Generation is a generation of kids who grew up with their parents frequenting the ubiquitous coffee chain. These kids don’t remember a time when Sbux didn’t exist. It is the epitome of cool… after all, college students hang out there, or so I hear. It is a place to see and be seen.
This great article from a Seattle area newspaper (found via CoffeeGeek) portrays the feelings of today’s youth on coffee pretty well.
“Sometimes carrying around a cup of coffee helps complete a look,” she says. “A pair of capris, flip flops and a coffee – and it has to have that cardboard sleeve – is very trendy.”
And it’s a versatile accessory to boot: “It can give you that sophisticated, urban, intellectual look,” Jessica says. “I want to be a writer when I grow up, so my friend said she can imagine me walking down the street in New York in all black with a coffee in my hand.”
You don’t even really need the coffee to be cool, just the cup – a status symbol to carry around the mall or perch atop a school desk.
The article even introduces us to a girl who buys the non-caffeinated drinks at Sbux simply because she “admires the image”.
Ugh. Gag me with a coffee stirrer.
But seriously, check out the rest of the article, it’s an interesting (and at times, mind numbing) read.
I love coffee and have ,at times, enjoyed Medicine Head also…