I drink coffee. Not because I like it but because I learned to drink coffee. Learning to drink coffee did not require me to like it. We learn to do things we don’t like.
Who likes their first drag on a cigarette?
Their first taste of hard liquor?
Their first sip of black coffee?
I was at my new job at a Big 6 accounting firm. Age 30; a late start, having gone back to school in my 20’s to enhance my English major with something more marketable: accounting.
I commuted to this job an hour-plus each way, arriving at work about 7:15 am. The employee lounge had a vending machine that sold snacks plus a coffee machine with free coffee. Staff gathered there; the watering hole. A chance to get to know colleagues, informally over sugar and cream.
Before that job, I didn’t drink coffee. But at that job, getting a cup of coffee in the morning became my ritual. Encouraged by both the social aspect and a belief I needed caffeine, I started my weekdays with coffee. Over the course of three years, through near-daily practice, I acquired a new habit. I became a coffee drinker.
I was a wimpy coffee drinker. I didn’t drink it black. I put in healthy-sized teaspoons of sugar. Then I’d pop open one or two flavored, sweetened creamers (appallingly wasteful little products), and add those. That was the only way I could stomach it.
Which should have signaled to me that coffee wasn’t what I wanted.
Going in and having tea? Hot water? That wouldn’t have worked. I wanted to be a part of this new tribe. They drank coffee. Coffee was the means to an end.
My character that wanted to connect, overrode the character who disliked coffee. Inner conflict; one prevailed.
Thirty years later I still drink coffee. I still dislike the taste. I work for myself so there’s no office-tribe to attend to. And yet, I still drink it.
If I’d been raised in England, I’d probably be having tea. Whether I liked it or not.
Walk the Goats 
Oh we Brits love our tea! Even though I can buy English tea bags here They. Are. Not. The. Same!!
Every time I go back to see my dad I come home with a six month supply! One of these days Customs are going to arrest me for not having an import license lol.
I have learned to drink coffee but I’ve grown to love it. Hot and black or iced and white!
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Various fixes. Basically, if it’s addictive, it has a market! My addiction is sugar. THAT I KNOW I like!
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Although, I like coffee, I’ve always thought it (the ground beans) smelled better than it tasted.
I’m more of a tea drinker, though. I think I inherited that from my mum. 🙂
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I’m with you on the smell. I do enjoy the smell. And I “handle” the taste 🙂
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I am a coffee drinker and do love the taste – but I am a bit picky about what I can or can’t drink black. Starbucks for instance which is a fave for many here is too bitter for me to drink black except the blonde roast. I don’t add sugar but I do like some coconut milk in mine. However, I grew up on coffee – small western Washington town where I was a daddy’s girl. That meant going out fishing with my dad when the only thing we had to warm us up was a thermos of black Folger’s coffee. I agree that the smell is often better than the taste though! (except when I’m pregnant – I can’t stand it then!)
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I wonder how many of our preferences are tied to fond memories and our dislikes are tied to un-fond ones?
I don’t like dark chocolate because someone gave me a square of baker’s chocolate as a kid. The kind with no sugar in it.I popped it into my mouth and instantly found it foul. But I couldn’t spit it out (kid, guest in house, you know) so it sat on my tongue for what felt like ages.
As an adult, I don’t eat chocolate ice cream. The chocolate candy I eat is strictly the milk chocolate kind, tilted heavily toward sugar vs chocolate. I’m sure it’s because of that dark chocolate incident! Un-fond memory :-)/
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