It all started with the sentence ‘’Let’s get coffee sometime.’’
Going on coffee dates and munching on the cookies that came with it always succeed into second dates. In this case, our first coffee date led to several more. On our fifth date, the taste of his lips touched mine after I woke my taste buds up with the mellow and rich flavor of coffee. Me, the one who favored coffee with excessive milk and sugar. Him, a classic coffee drinker. Black with a little licorice hint. The way we liked our coffee matches our personalities.
When he invited me over for a cup of coffee, it was the first time that I shared the night with him. In the morning, we walked down the streets as the early morning sun rays kissed our faces. We went to the same coffee shop like on our first date and we ordered the usual. It became our go-to place to meet. Soon, we couldn’t get enough of each other. Like coffee, we became each other’s new addiction.
Coffee was our incentive, the glue that held us together.
Coffee was our drug. Without it, there was no starting point. Without it, we wouldn’t have been able to be around each other. It was the icebreaker that we needed. One day I tried black coffee for the sake of him. It tasted pretentious and stale, and it left a bitter aftertaste.
After I woke my taste buds up from the black java, I realized I did the same thing to my coffee as I did to the men in my life. I covered them with sugar and spices to make them look interesting in my view. Even though they might be bad for me, I still made it acceptable to my taste to distract me from their intentions and personality. I fooled myself thinking that the only thing worse than black coffee is to drink it alone.
That’s why I turned to tea.
Tea has no double meanings. What you see is what you get. Maybe less intimidating in taste and even plain for some people. Tea is like that comforting friend that visits you after a hectic day. It is soothing and not overwhelming. You drink it because you want to, not because you need to. It can accompany you at any moment of the day, instead of feeling embarrassed about yet another coffee paper cup in your hand. Coffee is our guilty pleasures packed with all kinds of emotions. It drags us along in a roller coaster of high highs and low lows. It hypes us up at first only to find ourselves exhausted and out of it at the end of the ride. On the other hand, tea is what really puts our mind at peace at the end of the day.
I’ve learned that tea is better than coffee. I would never turn my back on tea just like I did with coffee because I finally found my cup of tea without needing extra flavors to fall in love with it.
Photo by Jeremy Banks on Unsplash
