Fancy Brew

When I was a child, my mother drank a lot of coffee. In my childish brain, it seemed as if every thermos mug in the cabinet held a nasty hint of bitterness. My parents had a bevy of those gas station thermos mugs so prevalent in the early 1990's. My mother would fill one of those puppies to the brim with coffee. Heaven forbid I accidentally grab a mug from the cabinet and fill it with ice water or coke or lemonade. Have you had lemonade poured into a coffee-whispered vessel? That the liquid will require dumping and a moment of silence for the anticipated beverage. Coffee equaled a vile, nasty, appetite killing concoction. Those mugs were drink death for me. My mother managed to ruin every single thermos mug with coffee.

Then I went to college. Honestly, I tried. I valiantly attempted to partake of the coolness factor, carrying around my personal thermos mug of not-coffee. Maybe that's why I wasn't cool? I did not mind the scent of coffee, but the flavor? Putrid. The love of coffee still did not "take".

I graduated, started my career, got married, had a couple babies, and then... sometime around baby number three... coffee, with its very low calorie count and ability to fling open shuttered eyelids appealed to me. I started slowly.  My first welcomed cups of joe were more like a shot of coffee in cream. Ahem. Basically, I wanted coffee merely sprinkled in my cup of chocolate milk. Over the next couple of years, the ratio of coffee to chocolate milk shifted dramatically.

Fast forward a few years and now I like a coffee that has the strength to walk over and present itself with a stiff bow. The chocolate milk addition? Gone. My morning routine involves shuffling to the coffee station, pulling out my favorite coffee mug, dribbling a smidge of milk into the cup, then filling to the brim with awakening elixir.

I have become my mother, though. I have noticed the kids accidentally grabbing one from the cabinet and making gagging faces when they get a whiff. Ahh, tradition. Interestingly, my mother now eschews coffee for tea. That happened after all her children grew up and she and Dad retired. If I have become my mother, will I drink tea years from now?