How I make my coffee

I don’t know where along the ride a cup of coffee got complicated. All you really need is some cream and sugar. 

We weren’t allowed to have any ‘adult drinks’ so we stole sips of tea from the porcelain lips of cups when eyes were turned away. Everything that was denied us, made us bloodthirsty for more of it. Not letting a kid have a cup of milk tea was steeped in reasons. Mom and Dad go, we weren’t allowed to drink tea or coffee till we were so-and-so old, we didn’t get to go on picnics if there were girls there, we wrote letters to our parents every single week in college, we couldn’t do this, that, whatever. 

We didn’t care, it didn’t matter to us. All we knew is that Jay was sneaking cigarettes in the mold ridden back alley and Sam was allowed to ride taxis by himself and Aliya’s parents kept liquor at home, and all we wanted was a fucking cup of tea. 

Mad with desire, I took to sneaking into the kitchen in the deep blue of the night. By this time, I had perfected the art of lying about why I needed to use the laptop and some nights people got tired of yelling at me to shut it down and go to sleep. When the house was finally still, I would tiptoe into the kitchen and turn the stove on to heat a cup of water. I wanted so badly to use the microwave and not have to bother with the open flame or a pot, but the neon buzz would cause an uproar. Mom has the senses of a bloodhound. To this day it gives me a secret thrill of pleasure every time I use a microwave and marvel at how fast it is and how the sound of it doesn’t have me ducking for cover. 

The tea bags were kept high up in a box several shelves above my head. I learned to climb those shelves like a monkey. I’d pour the hot water into a thermos, add three spoons of sugar (stopping to lick the spoon and sigh dreamily), shut the lid, and snip the overhanging thread from the teabag. The thermos is the most secret cup of all time, and difficult to spill in bed (not impossible, it happened a few times). Then I’d go into the bedroom, tuck myself under the mosquito netting, hug my thermos and read fanfic and chat online to my heart’s content. Reading at nighttime is always harder than during the day. It’s true there’s less people milling around the house, but the mosquito netting shimmers your view of the outside and people can sneak up on you very easily. And since it’s dark and your eyes are on the island whiteness of the screen, shadows can move around in the ocean of black around you almost as if they were invisible. I sit in the very corner, back against the wall, knees raised up, music playing in only one earbud. Only a fool would completely block off her hearing and be exposed to the naked darkness, where both monsters and sisters roamed freely. Of course I got caught more than several times, but it didn’t stop me. Roaming the forbidden land of the internet after sundown was something I looked forward to during maladaptive daydreams in class, even though some (actually, most) of the messages I exchanged with faceless strangers turned out to be very asinine and cringey to my later, non-teenage eyes. 

The beverage was simple. Some hot water for the tea bag to float in and some sugar to sweeten it. What else could you possibly want to put in it? Coffee came later, once I had been put on a plane to Indiana and there were less spies around. Everyone in class was showing up with sleepy eyes and a Starbucks cup that made me squirm in envy. I always made my coffee hot. A cup of milk, microwaved appropriately, with a spoon of instant coffee and several of powdered white sugar. Takes two minutes to make, and you always have the stuff on hand. 

I start drinking in cafes in college. I notice my friends have similar melodramatic stories, but about alcohol. It takes me till sophomore year of college to start drinking but in freshman year I have perfected my coffee order: white chocolate mocha with one pump of raspberry. On the good days, my boyfriend Cal would bring me the white and green Starbucks cup to Macy’s and I would spend the rest of the shift in dreams pumped by caffeine and romance. I don’t know where the recipe came from, maybe a Cosmo article. If Cosmo was so right about coffee, maybe they were also right about several other things, like how to give head properly and what skirt flare looks good on what body type.

I put more and more sweeteners in my coffee and all my friends laugh at me and read the labels on the cups and wonder what the hell is wrong with me. In junior year I try iced coffee for the first time when they mess up my order, and to my surprise, I’m hooked. They put apple and cinnamon and vanilla syrup in it. I drive myself all around LA that semester, looking for cafes that could make it just right. Soon after more flavors come along. There’s the brown sugar shaken espresso and there’s hazelnut, there’s different ways to foam the milk and whip the cream and splatter it with black current sauce, even maple syrup. 

When things get complicated, they leave an ache. I want an espresso machine and I want a milk steamer and I want the right syrups from the right places and whatever else they make and put on the shiny shelves for us to see. When sixteen-year-old me got off the plane in Chicago, she was flabbergasted by the choices of an entire aisle of cereal. It’s easy to forget where you came from when you can pour enough caramel in your coffee to make the spoon stand slick in the drink. I’d like to think that the young girl huddled in her bed holding her thermos like a weapon that, listen kid, it does get better and one day you won’t have to cower for a bit of caffeine and something warm to hold. Even so, to this day I still take my tea black, with three spoons of sugar.