The Insane Coffee Project

Am I spoofing Forrest Gump and his box of chocolates here?

Not really. Otherwise I would’ve gone with “life is like a bag of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Bean…” That hits the nail more squarely on the head, if you ask me. But it doesn’t have the same ring to it. And even though it’s hard to overstate the phenomenal success of the Harry Potter series, Bertie Bott’s insane confectionary belongs to the realm of fantasy lore, the deep geek realm, and cannot begin to compete with the reach of Mr. Gump’s tag-line, whose Alabama drawl still echos in our collective brain, sweet as molasses.

I’m not here to make claims about what life is like. It’s too complicated. But you can’t help stumbling across amusing parallels from time to time. A case in point: my eldest daughter must’ve been seven or eight the first time she asked me to make her a coffee. I stalled as much as I could, thinking there’s no need to rush her into a caffeine dependency. (That she would become curious was a given, and sooner rather than later in our house, because she’s seen her father obsessing about coffee her entire life.)

So we compromised. I roasted a sample of Colombian decaf especially for her. Espresso was out of the question, obviously. The only thing that had a slim chance, I thought, was a nice cappuccino with the fullest cream milk. I added a teaspoon of sugar as an afterthought. The poor kid. For days I had been warning her to the best of my ability, trying to prepare her for what might well turn out to be a disappointment. And it was. It’s heart-warming and a little sad how she tried to cushion the blow of her first sip of coffee for my sake, but it was clear as daylight that this stuff was anything but yummy to her. We successively added two or three more spoons of sugar. That made marginal improvements, but she wasn’t keen on finishing the drink. “Oh well” I replied inanely and reassured her that I for one wasn’t disappointed that it hadn’t been love at first sip for her. “It hadn’t been for me either” I added.

Let’s face it, regardless of how much we’ve grown to love coffee, our first sips rarely have us breaking out in song. Quite the contrary. It’s safe to say that coffee is an acquired taste, like many other bitter-tasting things that we don’t give up on and eventually grow to love. Staying with my two daughters a moment longer, I could add the following items off the top of my head: broccoli, Brussels sprouts, mushrooms, parsnip root and beetroot. There are many others and these are tastes that they have not acquired yet. But our eldest is eleven years old now and she does love her decaf cappas – and she would be thrilled to go full octane, but I’m still stalling…

There are things that we neither eat nor drink that are also acquired tastes. Jogging or mountain climbing and so on. Jazz is a great personal example. I just didn’t get it, but reading a few Beat Generation writers I was convinced that it was worth looking into. And it really was. Mind you, I’m talking here about the jazz that was hot from the 1940s to the early 60s (bebop, cool, modal, Brazilian). The earlier, New Orleans, big-band thing remains a stretch for me, nevermind the more modern stuff. Coltrane lost me somewhere along the line. But who knows, maybe it’s a more acquired taste, one that requires even more dogged persistence? Let me get back to you in twenty years.

Heavy metal I got into like a nice warm bath. Oh, the oxymoronic horror! I just mean that it took no effort at all. It happened quite seamlessly via Bon Jovi and AC/DC, and by the time I hit on Iron Maiden and Metallica, I knew that this was the sound that had been missing from my life. Since then there’s been a diversification into untold subgenres, most of which I haven’t followed. I don’t care much for most of them, but, haven’t put the hours in either.

My mind drifted from one thing to another, scanning for acquired tastes. Soon enough I wondered: is life like that? Is life an acquired taste? You could argue, yes. When we first enter into it, on this of mothers, we seem none too happy about it. And for those formative few months or years, we need a lot of milk for it to work at all. Much like our first cups of coffee. We’re all different, some of us acquire our taste for life early, some only land in some sort of sweet spot midlife, other perhaps only later, or not at all.

I’m sure we could spin out all kinds of cute, funny, or quasi-profound similarities between the acquired tastes of coffee and life. And I would love to hear what you come up with in the comments below. Also, let us know what other tastes you’ve acquired along the way.

Wishing you a lovely day and a flavourful journey ahead!