O coffee! My coffee! How delicious are you. In the Land of Cream and Sugar you flow like an engorged river.
“Would you like a refill?”
“Of course! I’ve only had ten!”
There is dark coffee, sweet coffee, mild mannered coffee, bitter coffee, slightly acidic coffee, flavored coffee, bold coffee, medium coffee, coffee with a punch (add a shot of espresso), and fakely sweet coffee (Splenda and Equal, I hope you never reach the rest of the world). So many choices of coffee. So much succulent deliciousness (except Splenda and Equal, just go away. Also, did you notice if you look at the word coffee too long it begins to look funny and then you spend 5 minutes wondering if you’ve been spelling it wrong? But I digress).
Upon embarking on this world wide adventure I was ecstatic to tickle my waiting taste buds with the nectar of the gods from every culture. Surely coffee will be exciting and different in every country.
Surely.
Surely?
Not.
Gaze upon the monstrosity that is 3 in 1! Look at it! Take in the hideous face of coffee imitation and abomination. Are you not disgusted? Now say something insulting to it. Go ahead, do it.
This is what has reared it’s ugly head in almost every country I’ve been to. There are no choices. Sure, some stores will carry ground coffee but only if you’re willing to shell out $29.95 for a half pound. Also, no one owns coffee pots. Thus, you are left with a packet of instant gag me where you never have the choice whether you’d like one cream or two or just a dash of sugar.
Maybe this is still leftover from the communist days of these countries where the self imposed powers that be decided they wanted to be in control of how much cream and sugar is supposed to be in each coffee cup. Heaven forbid the ratio of coffee to cream to sugar be slightly off.
What you are left with is the most blandly weak coffee that you have ever had the displeasure of passing over your displeased lips. If you want to know what it tastes like imagine dirt. Then sprinkle some sugar over it.
And it’s everywhere. Asia. Europe. And I hear even Africa.
Dear Africa, please don’t let this be true. I don’t even care if you filter the coffee through a dirty sock. Love, Brian.
That is why it’s not uncommon to see World Racers weep when they see a Starbucks. Or spend 2 hours ambling around a city moaning, “Goooood coffeeee,” like a bunch of zombies looking for their next round of brains.
The unfortunate part of my sad tale is that I’ve gotten used to it. Just like Americans have gotten used to having bleach, battery acid, and hydrogen peroxide in their Taco Bell meal so too have I adjusted to 3 in 1.
There are some mornings that I’ll even look forward to pouring my boiling water over the dirt colored mixture. That’s what happens to you when your coffee addiction won’t subside and you grasp for anything even remotely close to the taste.
Unfortunately, there is no life lesson to be had here. I’m terribly sorry if you read all this hoping that I would have some profound rumination on life. Alas, this blog was simply written to enact a change. My hope is that the evil coffee dictators in charge of 3 in 1 will read this and rethink things. I know that I will probably never see this change in my lifetime, but we can only hope our children will.
And for you in America who are reading this while sipping a beautifully dark cup of fresh brewed coffee, please savor every majestic bit of it. Then send me some coffee. And a coffee maker. And some coffee filters. And hazelnut creamer. Thank you very much.
