My friends often tell me that if a doctor did an X-ray of my body, they would see coffee flowing through my veins. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was true, considering I spent my childhood around avid coffee-drinking adults.
There is no question I inherited my love of the drink from my parents, who have been loyal coffee drinkers for decades. The smell of coffee filling up the kitchen in my house comforts me. I enjoy waking up in the morning and pouring hot coffee and oat milk in a travel mug to bring to school or going into the Brentwood Village and buying iced orange cardamom lattes from Clark Street.
Coffee not only makes me feel physically warm, but I have warm memories associated with it. One big reason I began drinking coffee was seeing my parents drink it almost every day. When I visited my dad at work when I was younger, he always had a coffee maker sitting in his office. I remember my grandfather singing “Java Jive” by The Ink Spots so often that it became ingrained in my head, and the inspiration for this article’s headline.
You might love its taste or you might hate it. You might add milk, sugar and ice or drink it black. You might need coffee to power through late nights of work and studying, or you may just like the effect it has on your mood. That’s why I love coffee; every person has their own relationship with it.
I like a wide variety of options, whether at home from a mug or buying a cup when I’m out; my drink choice solely depends on my day and my mood. Although this may be an unpopular opinion, I do not like Starbucks’s coffee drinks. They have too much sugar and stray away from the actual coffee part of the drink.
One of my favorite coffee drinks is the orange cardamom latte from Clark Street. It isn’t very sweet, which I prefer, and has a great combination of light sweetness from the orange, spice from the cardamom and slight bitterness from the coffee. I have been a fan of cardamom since I traveled to Copenhagen with my parents and tried cardamom buns and lattes, which are both incredible.
Another of my favorite drinks is a classic iced mocha. My dad’s side of the family raised me to be a chocolate lover, so an iced mocha was my go-to order for a long time. I like switching up my coffee order because I know mochas will always be there if I try something I don’t like.
Although there are more complex coffee drinks I enjoy, I still like regular lattes with oat milk. I have been lactose intolerant for more than a decade, and I don’t think I’ve ever tried coffee with regular milk, at least not on purpose. The lattes are very easy to make at home; a simple coffee with oat milk in it is slightly filling without being sweet.
I not only like coffee’s taste, but it helps with my Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and anxiety. Coffee boosts dopamine production in the brain, which helps eliminate the loss of dopamine caused by ADD.
Coffee was also one of the many tools that helped me make it through the rollercoaster of junior year and the beginning of my senior year, from working through study guides to finishing my college applications. Drinking coffee after powering through long nights of studying, homework and writing articles helped me feel more connected to my family members, as I realized this is what they mean when they say they “need” coffee.
Coffee might not be for everyone; however, it not only gets me through the day but reminds me of how connected I feel to my family, even when I’m feeling down. Although I hope my fondness of coffee doesn’t become my only personality trait, coffee is so delicious and special that I hope my friends will continue to make jokes about coffee being the essential medicine that seems to run through my body.
