I thought I knew coffee. Truth is I discovered that I didn’t know jack about it. In fact I had no clue just how out of the coffee loop I was until vacationing with my spouse at one of those resort hotels where the aroma of coffee from not one, but two fancy coffee places beckoned me.

As soon as I approached the counter, a coffee inquisition occurred. Did I want a cappuccino, a latte, an espresso, an Americano or a Macchiato?  A macchi what, I think?  All of these I was informed could be made with clouted cream, scalded milk, sprinkled with cinnamon, laced with a smidgeon of grated vanilla bean and topped with dollop of Cool Whip. 

 “Did I want French Roast, Dark Roast, Italian Roast, Columbian, or Costa Rican?” inquired the young woman behind the counter who looked too young to know that much about coffee. She seemed so perky I wondered how much of the brew she had already had that morning. Did I want it with foam or without foam?  Did I want an 8 oz. cup size or a 12 oz. cup?  Dear God, make it stop! More than a little intimidated now by all the choices, I pondered, doesn’t anyone just drink plain old coffee anymore?  

Used to be coffee was something that was drunk. My father drank coffee when I was growing up, however it was considered an adult beverage in our house. My hot beverages as a child were tea laced with milk and sugar, and occasionally hot chocolate. So I didn’t start drinking coffee until I went into the military. At first I drank it to keep awake after being blasted out of bed by a bugle at ‘O Dark Thirty’ during Basic Training. Then I needed a serious caffeine infusion after sleeping all night on the hard floor, for no way was I going to sleep on my bed once I finally learned how to make it so that my Drill Sergeant could bounce a quarter on it during inspection.

Coffee today is different from coffee of years gone by. Today coffee is a destination. ‘Let’s meet for coffee later,’ one of my colleagues suggested recently as a solution to a meeting that we were planning. Alas, it appears that only older folks drink plain coffee as even pre-teens can be seen sipping grande Mocha Frappuccinos enroute to school. 

Reading up on the vast amount of material devoted to coffee, who knew – I am now more hip, at least coffee-wise. Now faced with ordering coffee away from home I can do more than – well, cry. I now know that a cappuccino which I find kind of fun to say is espresso in steamed milk (less than a latte) with a deeper layer of foam; while a mocha is espresso with chocolate syrup and steamed milk topped with whipped cream. Admittedly, I’ll probably never be one of those folks who can tell by just tasting where the coffee beans are from or detect the ones hand-picked by Juan Valdez.  I can live with that.