Hi! Hello! 👋
Welcome to another blog post of my An Apple Eats blog series.
I remembered the bitter taste when I took my first sip of coffee from my mother's cup. I told my mother I didn't like it. She said she'll make a cup for me that's sweet if I wanted to try. I was curios if it there really is a thing, so I nodded my head eagerly. That was when I started to drink coffee. I was in high school that time.
For background, I was only exposed to instant coffee. I lived in a place where coffee from coffee beans is not common knowledge. I would always make my coffee like how my mother made, sweet and creamy. 1/4 tsp of black coffee, about 1tsp of sugar, and about 1tsp of coffee creamer.
After school I would always fix myself a hot cup of coffee with bread. Dipping bread in coffee was something I did and still do until today. I slept a lot when I was younger (I'm still young I swear), and after my afternoon nap on the weekends I'd watch some telenovelas while drinking coffee, and of course with bread. I loved drinking coffee so much I drank it everyday.
When I graduated from college and started working in a company, I did so much overtime work that a cup of coffee a day was not enough and didn't help with drowsiness anymore. I would drink about 3-4 cups a day that time. Mind you, I've only been drinking instant coffee. I've tried different flavors and would stick to one flavor for a couple of weeks before trying out another one. Although I was aware that those expensive coffee in coffee shops are different, I did not know why. I had no knowledge about how a certain type of coffee is prepared or something. But occasionally, I would have one those expensive coffee when invited by friends and co-workers if there are promos.
At some point, I noticed I've been getting palpitations, nervous, and couldn't stop my hands from shaking after drinking coffee. Looking back at it now, it might have been caused by some other things but as a paranoid person, I just came to the conclusion that coffee was the culprit. I stopped drinking coffee. I lost count but I think it reached more than 5 years that I didn't not drink any coffee at all. I've missed out so much on good coffee drinks and what not. I've only been able to discover about substitute coffee after living in Japan. There was only one brand of coffee substitute that I really liked and it was made with barley and rye. The other brands just tasted so different, one was like burnt tire 🤢.
When I watched food videos, I would pass by a couple of videos about coffee. That's when I learned about different ways of making coffee - espresso, latte, americano, lungo, etc. etc. I really am a very curious person as once something piqued my interest, I would take a bit of my time to learn about it. And so I searched for more videos and read blogs about making coffee. I even thought of looking for some workshop or classes about latte art. But alas, my Japanese is limited and I couldn't find anything in English here in Japan. I am not giving up though, if there's an opportunity to attend one, I would certainly grab it.
Anyway, around corona virus time, dalgona coffee has gone viral. I really wanted one but I could only make some for my friends and not for myself. Coffee substitute did not actually work when I tried using it to make dalgona coffee. That was the start of my baking era as well 😆 and it was such a shame that I could only stick to substitute coffee to pair with my baked goods 😢
I've thought about it a lot and finally, just about 2 years ago, I decided I'll go back to drinking coffee but I'll steer clear of instant coffee. I slowly started with decaf coffee drip. Eventually, would love to make my own coffee from coffee beans. However, when I search for espresso machines, the price has discouraged me as I don't think I am really into coffee. Also I am a very lazy person and I don't think I am patient enough to have time to actually use a complicated coffee machine. I really just need to have a quick and easy way of making coffee. So I investigated again, this is why they say lazy people are the most productive people as we will find ways to solve our problems in least amount of time required 😆. I found some way to have my coffee without any fuss in just a few minutes. This is not sponsored but nespresso mini has been my life saver ever since.
To this day, I've been enjoying a cup of coffee a day every morning right before work. I am still scared to drink more than a cup as sometimes I still get palpitations. But anyway I am glad I decided to drink coffee again.
Here are some coffee I made, mostly lattes.
I sometimes post reels of how I make my coffee and other food related content on instagram. Please feel free to follow me 😆
https://www.instagram.com/an.apple.eats/
Thank you for reading and see you on my next blog.
Eating-Apple,
Apple
PS: All photos are mine unless stated otherwise.
