Like a best friend, Coffee has been with me now for a big chunk of my life. Like me, it has evolved, matured, and unlike other things I've outgrown, Coffee and I are getting along better than ever. As a kid, Coffee, like cigarettes and alcohol, was a grown up thing I would look on in fascination. I was eager to sample them so I could be like my parents and the people I saw in movies smoking and drinking and gulping coffee with a world-weary air. It's what mysterious strangers drank at late night diners, and beatnik poets in hazy cafes or overworked cops and newsmen trying to stay alert in pursuit of the truth. The coffee I discovered in late adolescence, was for the most part, terrible, I can say now with the benefit of hindsight. The weak brew served after restaurant meals or with breakfast was mysteriously watery and bitter. My dad would drink Nescafe instant coffee crystals, which is how I think I started, and could be mixed strong. Instant coffee has a strong emotional pull for me since it was our drink of choice on a Greek family vacation and it's what I would drink every morning at dawn in the guesthouse on my first trip to Korea.

 In my University years I graduated to espressos, cappucicnos and cafe au lait (served in a big bowl in Montreal like a delicious caffeinated soup you lapped up like a cat.) I earned spending money working in cafes and got proficient at foaming warm milk. At each stage of my life and at every new address the coffee became better and better and more refined. Brooklyn was an embarrassment of riches. The local coffee shop in my town clinched our decision to move there. It keeps getting better and better and pricier and more important. On days I can't think of a good reason to get out of bed, it's coffee that pulls my sleeve and gives me a reason to live, and not just exist. I love it so.