The first time that I tried “black coffee” was when I was back in junior high school in Taiwan; I was 14 years old then and thought black coffee tasted extremely bitter. Why would people want to drink coffee in the mornings before work or school? To be honest, I was completely wrong and I am semi-reliant on coffee now. What’s even more ironic is that I learned to like black coffee, as well.
My interest in coffee grew so much to the point that one: my dream is open a coffee shop and two: not only do I want to do part-time job in a cafe but I also want to learn how to brew good coffee and latte art. Living in Tokyo, I’ve appreciated and visited many different types of coffee shops, ranging from one of my personal favorites, Doutor Cafe, to the recently opened Blue Bottle Coffee store in Shinagawa atré.
Modern and sharp-designed Blue Bottle Coffee, Shinagawa branch store.
As I am personally a milk lover, I always order latte or cafe au lait when I go to any coffee shop; for a long time, I had been a loyal supporter of Starbucks. Despite their highly priced coffee, their coffee richness has been quite hard to defeat when competing with other coffee brands and shops. Yet nowadays, I only sip Starbucks coffee once in a long while and learned to appreciate and try other good coffee. One of my current favorite coffee is Dean & Deluca latte since their freshly whipped hot milk cream enhances the smoothness of the coffee to a whole new level. When it comes to convenience stores’ coffee, Natural Lawson’s cafe latte is the top. There is another special brand of coffee that I personally like to enjoy. This brand is famous worldwide, yet according to people’s first impressions, this brand is not well-known for their coffee – Godiva. Godiva currently sells their refreshing, sweet-scented Hazelnut Crème ground coffee. Despite tasting completely different from regular black coffee, this unique blend and aroma is quite unforgettable after trying once.
Godiva’s ground coffee beans, Hazelnut Crème flavor.
Although I don’t drink coffee every single morning, I guess I do crave coffee every single day. Coffee has become part of my life, definitely not only as a source of drink to keep my vibes going for the day. Walking around coffee shops in Tokyo and observing assistants in Blue Bottle Coffee dripping coffee through coffee filters one by one, it has been astounding to realize how much this beloved drink has affected my life and potentially – my future dream as well.
This article was written by HC Waseda Guest Writer, Angela Chung.