The most beautiful thing I’ve ever read about coffee was written by Jessica Walsh, one half of the renowned design duo, Sagmeister & Walsh. In 40 Days of Dating, a social-experiment-slash-art-collaboration with fellow designer and friend Timothy Goodman, Walsh explained this:
“I am seriously in love with coffee. I drink three to five cups of coffee per day. I love the ritual, the taste, the boost of energy, the reason to take a break. I love it in all its forms: a shot of espresso, a cup of black iced coffee, a creamy latte. I’ll even eat coffee beans straight.”
I can relate. I, too, love coffee. I, too, love the experience of coffee. I, too, have fallen in love over coffee.
Act I: Love at First Sips
Coffee and I first met at Starbucks when I started working at the Mentor East location in my hometown after college. Four years of busting my ass at Syracuse University and I was ready for a little slack time before the start of real life.
Part of the employee training included tasting Starbucks’ line of branded beans. From Caffe Verona, the chocolatey mild roast from Latin America, to Sumatra, the earthy, Asian-Pacific brew that paired well with mushroom quiche, I eventually tried them all. But I wasn’t just learning the flavors I’d be serving to the revolving door of customers over the next one-and-a-half years. I was also learning HOW to taste.
Oh yes, there’s a specific method—one that ensures you’ll be able to identify the main players in a blind taste test, noting their regions and defining qualities. It is a method meant to awaken your inner coffee snob, the part of you that will not, under absolutely any circumstances, confuse the crème de la crème that is Starbucks with the hot garbage in a tin can (or, more likely, a red family-size plastic tub in the freezer) that is Folgers.
Stare. Sniff. Slurp sip. Pause. Full sip.
I learned about the coffee, sure, but I was also learning about S. At first glance, he was skinny and awkward, naïve and a bit too sweet for this world. He was also handsome. I was attracted to his light eyes and dramatic bone structure—the type that makes young boys look like rugged cowboys until they grow into their features. After ending a college romance that could best be described as tumultuous, I found myself drawn to someone very much the opposite: endlessly polite and a bit of a pushover. S. fit the bill. There was no way he could have seen me coming.
Studying S. involved a lot of staring at S., trying to sniff out whether the other barista he was casually fucking was going to be an issue. I slurped the coffee. I paused my lobby check duties to flirt. And just after 2 am at a party at his place, I took the full sip.
My then-relationship with coffee was similarly unnuanced. There was a period with skim milk and Splenda, another with splashes of sugary vanilla soy milk. I drank small cups, preferring sweet, smoky South American and European roasts to the spicier, herbal notes found in the African and Asian beans.
I tried unsuccessfully to guzzle down small amounts during 15-minute breaks. A lot of half-full paper cups found their way to the waste basket. I didn’t think a lot about the environment or about other people’s feelings. And spoiler alert: That other barista became an issue.
It was my first taste of blending business with pleasure, and it was kind of a shit show! These were the mistakes of an amateur, of someone who didn’t quite understand the finer complexities of acting in good taste.
The relationship continued when I left for Manhattan to pursue an internship with a children’s magazine. For a long time, we made it work with sexy Skype dates and weekend visits. S., ever the nice-guy romantic, would write me notes on Starbucks cups and send me photos.
But it was pretty much over by the time I’d returned. Having cheated on S. with the manager of a different, far crazier Starbucks a stone’s throw away from Penn Station, it was clear I’d learned a lot about the nuances of coffee and practically nothing about being a good partner. I didn’t have the courage to end the perfectly-fine relationship outright. Instead, I let it spill messily all over the place and hoped someone else would clean things up.
Act II: Things Get Dark Then Deconstructed
By the time I moved to Portland, I’d settled into a comfortable love affair with black coffee. I didn’t need distracting add-ins to help the brew go down. Preparing a full French press for one became a sacred and unapologetic ritual. Pouring little cups over the course of several working hours, I drank java the way most people consume water.
This was around the same time I found myself single, navigating the bitter underbelly of Tinder completely alone. It didn’t start off in dark roast territory, but the experience moved past its blond phase pretty quickly. My favorite dates were over coffee.
There is something singularly beautiful about spending time in a café. It feels nice. I enjoyed the setting for first dates because of its potential. There’s a distinct possibility that the café will become a background player in a romantic comedy meet-cute. There’s also a very real chance that men who meet you in the daytime for caffeinated beverages won’t expect you to come back to their bedrooms. Besides all that, the coffee-shop vibe felt on-brand for me. It was easy to get lost in the fantasy.
So, there was a propensity to believe that whatever stranger I was meeting could be the one simply because I was surrounded by a sexy metallic espresso machine, an eye-catching chalkboard menu and a patronage of attractive people. Could love be found sitting on velour easy chairs surrounded by whimsical wall art? Aren’t bad dates regulated to seedy dive bars and overcrowded gastropubs? Cafés are simply too charming for a disastrous meetup with Mr. Wrong.
I met M. at a brunch place called Trinket on Caesar Chavez Boulevard. It wasn’t a coffee shop, but joe made an appearance. M. was visiting from Seattle and would only be in town for the rest of the day. The only reason I wanted to meet up at all was to prove I wasn’t a complete idiot. We’d been drunkenly chatting on the app the night before, and there had been enough linguistic misunderstandings that we’d slipped into a conversational comedy of errors. I was not comfortable with how I was coming off. I may be a writer, but as a potential mate, I’m far more charming in person.
When we met, I liked him right away. He was kind of a smartass, but in the harmless, boyish way that reassured you he wasn’t an actual jerk. His eyes twinkled mischievously when he smiled. Only a few inches taller than me, M. was a collegiate runner, and he was good. He’d won the Colorado Springs marathon a few years earlier. I liked that about him.
His best quality, though, was that he was a Cleveland native. I met a lot of Ohioans on Tinder, and it was almost always a relief. I knew what I was getting with good ole boys from the Buckeye State. With M., things felt comfortable.
Brunch ended, and we walked around the neighborhood laughing and sharing stories. Then we walked around for longer because I somehow LOST MY FUCKING CAR. My mission to prove I was intelligent was failing miserably. After 20 minutes of walking in circles along side streets with vehicles sardined bumper to bumper, we found it around the corner from Trinket. . .exactly where I’d left it.
Now confident that I wouldn’t be wandering carless around the city’s eastside, M. promised to stay in touch. Then, he said the words that changed the course of our history: “If you’re ever in Seattle, let me know.” I’d always wanted to go to Seattle, so approximately a week later I asked a boy I’d met exactly once if I could stay with him for the weekend.
M. later told me that he couldn’t believe I’d actually come. I couldn’t believe he’d actually agreed. Two people who’d done little more than hug planned to share a bed for the next two nights. We both hailed from a city where the river caught fire more than once, and we had great chemistry over text message. That was it. But what could have been a depressing cup of Folgers turned out to be Kopi Luwak.
I fell in love with the Pacific Northwest that weekend. Up until that point, my move across the country had largely left me feeling isolated and inadequate. The boy I’d moved there to be with used the days after I’d already transitioned my job to a remote position to tell me he “didn’t think” he loved me anymore. I packed up and drove across the country anyway. Months later, it was his brilliant idea to get on Tinder in the first place. He wanted to bring other people into the bedroom.
Because my then-boyfriend’s idea of a good time was playing video games from just before noon when he woke up until late into the night, he wasn’t exactly showing me around town, and I didn’t yet have the self-confidence to go it on my own. The Portlanders I did meet were largely cliquish, so making plans felt somewhat impossible. Working from home wasn’t helping my social life either.
When I finally broke up with the boy, I refused to move out until the lease was up. It wasn’t my fault he’d fucked everything up. A couple weeks in, however, I was desperate to get away. So, I left my dog with him, lied about my weekend plans and drove four hours north to King County.
M. took me on a (somewhat disastrous) mountain hike and out to fancy dinners. We drove by the red-handed Lenin statue and peeped at the troll under the Fremont Bridge. We ate oysters and got tipsy on cocktails. We explored the city on foot, passing the Pike Place Starbucks to see the java empire’s humble beginnings. I was enamored with all of it.
The weekend culminated in a coffee-tasting experience at a place called Slate in East Ballard. The roastery had won some sort of best-of award, an impressive feat in the town that industry giants like Starbucks, Peet’s and Seattle’s Best call home. We drank deconstructed lattes and prepared to say good-bye.
After that, we would see each other a few more times in Portland. Once, we shacked up in a hotel, and he alternated between seeing me and visiting with friends. Months later, he stopped by my apartment for a delightful afternoon. Afterward, we walked to Blue Star donuts, where he ate dairy-free treats, and I drank black coffee.
In the end, the constant separation meant that our short-lived relationship would never be anything more than a truly enjoyable moment in time. We’d eventually meet other people better suited to our long-term everyday tastes and take them to our favorite coffee shops instead.
Act III: The Best Part of Waking Up
If a marriage is made of many small moments, then my husband is a man of tiny gestures. His love is not expressed on stadium Jumbo-trons or in cursive skywritten messages that can be seen from the peak of Angel’s Rest. His affection is far sexier: He makes me coffee every morning.
When we first started dating, we made a trip to Target for something that wasn’t Valentine’s Day-themed coffee mugs, but alas, that’s where we ended up. No matter where I’m shopping, I will find where the coffee mugs live and pop in for a visit. Because I love attitude mugs with sassy script. I love handmade ceramic mugs covered in Earthenware glaze. I love soup-bowl sized mugs that need to be cupped between both hands.
This love was sometimes a bit extreme. I once found an itty-bitty elephant mug in a “free junk” shoebox when I was walking around SE Portland. R. loved elephants, so I presented it to him when I arrived at his house for dinner. I didn’t realize the full extent of how insane this gift felt until I was telling him where it came from. Why was this man dating me? He owned a home, and I was giving him street trash from cardboard boxes.
“I love it,” he exclaimed, and I loved him.
R. had no less than 67 instruments for consuming liquids when I met him. The coffee mugs were accompanied by juice cups, pint glasses, novelty beer steins, wine glasses, shot glasses, whiskey snifters and champagne flutes. The glassware alone filled nearly an entire cupboard. I’d moved in with a crowded mug tree of my own.
So, when I wanted to do the thing at Target that I always do and only sometimes regret (buy a bunch of shit I don’t need), I was fully aware of our at-capacity cupboard. We didn’t really have the space for two additional shelf-dwellers. But when I excitedly explained that the mugs read, “You had me at Coffee” and “Hashtag Love,” R. chuckled. “We should get them.” He was always indulging me, especially at the beginning.
Our relationship didn’t begin with a date in a café, but it certainly percolated over americanos and alternative milk lattes, cortados and never-ending refills of burnt diner brews. We once spent a day doing an impromptu walking tour of Southwest Portland coffee shops, getting a shot of espresso and a latte at each, and rating them based on self-selected criteria. We were buzzing.
One of my receptive love languages is quality time, so every moment spent in phone-absent conversation over a hot cup of mud was holy. Every downhill jaunt to Jola cafe from our townhome was meaningful. Every Sunday built around a fresh bag of beans and a warmed cinnamon bun was cherished.
R. understands this on some level. He makes me coffee every morning because his expressive love language is acts of service. It is through the process of grinding beans, preparing a pour-over, heating the kettle and swirling the water over the collected roast that he reminds me of my importance in his life.
He fills two mugs, and we often sit side-by-side in silence. Him down the rabbit hole of animal-fact listicles and sports memes; me lost in the mental gymnastics of planning my day, occasionally distracted by the black hole of my imagination. Our morning routine is one common to marriages that have moved beyond meaningless chatter. He had me at the coffee, and there is nothing left to say.
With pleasure,
Yes, Misstrix