How did I get myself into coffee?

“oh, you studied in Melbourne! Coffee Mecca of the world (I’d bet some folks from Seattle might have a thing or to to say about that), of course you’d be into coffee! How could you not?!”

The thing is, as far as I recall, back when I left that city circa 2009, coffee didn’t seem to be such a big thing. I might be mistaken though, since as a foreign student, I frequented other more mainstream establishments, like the Bald Jewish Guy chocolate place, or the Donut Jesus Place, or the Seattle Coffee Chain (not me though, thank Odin), so I might have missed out on the whole initial boom.

So I guess I can say that my passi…no, too passé…my interest in coffee… began after I returned to Malaysia.

How? I can’t specifically recall.

As any normal, non-morning person, my first go-to routine would be to make some coffee, for a shot of caffeine, that would then trick me into feeling like I’m that bit more productive than everyone else. But my coffee back then was just the awesome Nescafe gold instant coffee (my still go-to coffee whenever I want to stay up late to do work and give myself a headache at the same time).

I also remembered receiving a drip coffee machine for my wedding gift, which I would only later…one year later…use to brew Nescafe Gold with (using a paper filter at that!). I distinctly remember saying, “by gosh! The coffee tastes so much better!”. Ok, not really, the coffee tasted the same.

I can though, tell you this; I think my love for coffee bloomed through people I came to know on Twitter (props to you, resident twitter grump, much love). I knew a few people who would recommend me their favourite place for coffee, and I went from there.

It started from EspressoLab’s coffee, which apparently was heavy with Colombian, giving you that bit of bold fruitiness, with a slight acidic finish, then I moved on to try other single origins, bought from Tesco (which are pretty good!) to ordering beans from beanshipper.com.

To shorten a long-ish story, my adoration for coffee began very much after my sojourn in Melbourne, almost by accident.

Why coffee though?

Trying to avoid sounding cliched, to me, each cup is a new adventure, each single origin, or each house blend is an exciting new story to be experienced, and I find a lot of joy in that. It thrills me.

Brewing a good cup can be demanding. A little tweak in your method leads to a big change in taste. It’s this constant fiddling with all the intricacies of making a brew and getting closer to  personal perfection is what keeps me so engrossed in this magical capsule of flavour and aroma.

Coffee is not just a drink to keep me going, it’s my little cup of happiness.

Oh, and I finally visited Melbourne a couple of weeks back, and I went to check out some of the coffee places they had, they were absolutely amazing.