When I was fourteen, I lived with a Dutch family near the boarding school I attended.
{Note: My parents are Christian missionaries in France, and I went to an American boarding school in Germany for high school. It was about a five hour drive from home. And yes, I LOVED it!}
They spoke English and had kids that were my age. One of their family traditions was that on Sundays after church, they would eat sandwiches and finger foods for lunch and drink a half mug of coffee.
The sandwiches were good, but the coffee? I had never tasted coffee before. But with my French manners rooted deeply inside of me, I accepted anything they gave me. I couldn't refuse.
And that first Sunday of my ninth grade year is when my coffee addiction started.
What I realize in hindsight was that this was Dutch family living in Germany: they made their coffee STRONG and BLACK. So I got used to drinking it STRONG. I drank it all through high school and college STRONG. I was making it it so strong that I had to increase the amount of food I was eating at breakfast or else it would make me dizzy.
But the strength of your coffee is all relative. My best friend from that same boarding school grew up in Yemen (her parents were missionaries there at the time). She thought my coffee was weak. She told me that unless it had the consistency of MUD, then it wasn't real coffee.
How do you take your coffee?
