Café Mortalité
Read Mercer Schuchardt
April 1, 1995
Why do humans drink coffee? It does not taste good. It is not good for you. It is not illegal (and therefore fun). In fact, the only positive qualities it has are negative-it is expensive, it is addictive, it stains your clothes, it tarnishes your teeth, it gives you bad breath, and, at the McDonald's drive-thru, it causes second-degree burns if you spill it on your lap (although this can be to your benefit).
The question begs an answer. Why do we discuss coffee the way a sommelier describes wine? "It has an understated approach, a delicate and smooth aroma complementing the full body, yet the wry presumption of its buttery finish is quite amusing." When did coffee flavors start outnumbering ice cream flavors? Where is Alto Grande Hacienda? In other words, how is it that coffee confers on the connoisseur an air of intellectual superiority, while ignorance of the subject is as painful to admit as the lack of a high school diploma?
The bitter, dark, foreign taste of coffee on the tongue every morning, noon, and night in every culture from Albania to Zimbabwe is a testament not to the commonality of the human taste bud, but to the universality of what it symbolizes: death.
Coffee is as categorically unhealthy as smoking. It is a pleasure unnatural to babies. Like beer, its raw taste must be acquired to be enjoyed. Those acquiring the taste are always the same: cultural adolescents seeking acceptance in a world that is basically bewildering. In the desperate search for significance, the neophyte will pay any price to be taken seriously.
But the honest person asks the same question as the five year old: If you don't enjoy coffee on the first taste, why force yourself to like it through repeated torture? Even the body speaks clearly ...
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