My Mother's Melitta




When I was 15, I started brewing coffee with my mother’s Melitta Drip Coffee Maker. I learned by watching her. She would carefully take out a filter and line the plastic cone that sat on top of a glass carafe. The coffee dripped very slowly and seemed to take a long, long time to brew.

It smelled amazing. I watched in utter fascination. Then, I started taking sips when she wasn’t looking. We never had a conversation about whether I should drink coffee or not. I just started making and drinking coffee---all day long, and into the night.

Coffee made me feel better, more alive, and more focused. When I started drinking coffee, I became a better student, a better friend, a better big sister, a better daughter. Still, I assumed that on some level I was harming my health. I secretly feared that one day if I didn’t stop in time, my obsession with coffee would catch up with me. Like my friends who smoked cigarettes or went out drinking, I treated my penchant for Maxwell House like a vice.

Little did I know that two decades letter, researchers would celebrate coffee as a health-enhancing beverage. When I first heard the good news, it made perfect sense to me. Previously, coffee was assumed to have negative effects on health, but in fact, many of the studies on which those assumptions were based were flawed, mainly because they failed to factor out other health habits, such as cigarette smoking. Twenty years ago who would have thought that large-scale coffee-drinking would take hold with such intensity in the United States? Where would we be without cafés? Who would we be now, culturally, if there was no Starbucks or Peete’s or local independent coffee house? Where would we go? The coffeehouse/café tradition, which goes back to the Middle East and Europe, first took hold in the United States more than 100 years ago mainly in large cities. It continues to evolve and influence the physical and social rhythms of our lives. Despite all of the ambiguity about the role of coffee in our society, and the occasional hand-wringing about its effect on health---all available evidence shows that coffee is overwhelmingly good for us physically, psychologically, and socially.


Comments

Anonymous said…
Smoking cigarettes and going out drinking are vices???

People who have no obvious vices can't be trusted (Tiger Woods, any Mormon). Neither can men who wear bow ties, for that matter.

Second hand smoke causing cancer is an example of false research. Unethical behaviour by groups in order to advance an agenda, no matter how laudable, is still unethical behaviour. It destroys the credibility of the organizations that sign on and they may need that credibility for some good purposes later.

Smoke is annoying to non-smokers, period. Second-hand has not caused a single case of cancer. First-hand smoke, yes.

You can't even engage in a good smoking/drinking night/binge out anymore. And they wonder why every major city is broke!

If I had 3 wishes, one of them would be to blow smoke in Bloomberg's face. The other 2 would involve some good old fashioned vices, or more wishes. BTW- if you did have 3 wishes, why wouldn't you wish for more wishes, is that against the rules, or something? What gives?
Anonymous said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
Smoking is indeed a vice. It is a vice that every one in the world can't quit immediately. It needs motivation and determination to do so.

Popular posts from this blog

Happiness Is…Buying a New Coffee Maker & Getting a Refund for the Old One

Coffee Prices Explode & Global Coffee Gratitude

Who is Juan Valdez and why I drink instant coffee