I don’t know why I enjoy coffee so. It’s hard and bitter taste should not set so well with my love for sweeter things, and yet I drink my black and strong, and daily, too.  I drink teas, with a drop of honey, and sometimes cream, and I bake my cookies with plenty of sugar (for which you often berate me). I pass over fresh raspberries in favor of sweet blackberries time and time again, and will happily forgo a green apple for a red.

You’ve seen my sweet tooth rear its head in every place, except where my coffee is concerned. To add cream would be a crime, and sugar the greatest blasphemy. I brew it so that when you pour yourself a cup, you leave room to add more water, too, and I drink it thus, and happily. The more bitter and black the coffee grounds, the more I’ll enjoy it, and more than once you’ve asked me why.

Morning by morning, not a one goes by without a cup to cheer me. On the rare occasion I’ll substitute a fine black tea, but I don’t enjoy that quite as much. You sit at the table and watch me, drinking my coffee and picking at the remnants of my breakfast, and I see your wonder clearly. And watching you makes me begin to wonder, too. Why DO I love my coffee so?

Maybe it’s a solid reminder of hardships. Many I have gone through, and many more will come. There’s bitterness there, with the sweetness of success at overcoming, but sometimes we forget. I look back and think of the blackness of those times, but the sweetness of the present often drowns them out, masking their wretched taste. I look ahead and see other hard times, also masked by the pleasure of your love.

Maybe I love it because I love you. Your cynical personality is a good anchor for my floating optimism. You counterbalance my own sweetness with your bitterness, and we hang in that wonderful balance between a sugar cookie and a cup of coffee. And just as the smell of good coffee grounds me in the start of a new day, your presence grounds me when I might otherwise simply float away.

I guess I really don’t know why I love coffee so, but now I have new thoughts to consider as I sip my morning wake-up brew.