I really can't believe it. I now drink coffee. I never pictured myself as a part of the coffee generation. I still love my soda, but now in the morning I find myself having a cup of coffee before I leave for work and one to two cups while at work. This has just taken place in the past year or so. As I look back, I think it may have had something to do with having a toddler in the house and also just beginning to build a website.

Building a website from scratch is quite an undertaking and there are many hours accumulated hovering over the computer. In order to find a few more hours in the day I started getting up at about 5:00 am before work and also on the weekends. This not being my normal routine, I guess I found myself in need of some additional wake up help to be able to get up that early in the morning. Along came coffee!

Long ago, I never really cared for the mocha flavor of coffee at all, even in sweets or baked goods. I think it all started when my husband and I were on a particularly cold motorcycle ride with quite a few more miles to go before home. We had stopped at a gas station for fuel and I thought I might be able to get a cup of hot chocolate. The only thing available was flavored cappuccino. I gave it a try because I was really cold and was surprised by how good it really was. (Now I know all of you coffee experts out there are probably chuckling at the quality of gas station cappuccino, but I guess we all start somewhere.)

Anyway...at some point I started buying the cappuccino mix at the grocery store and then graduated to General Foods International Coffees. My husband drinks regular coffee at home, but I never touched it, at least not then.

Then at work we moved our offices and now, with a coffeemaker nearby, I have started drinking coffee at work. Just recently did I learn how to make a decent pot of coffee. Talk about feeling out of touch! I am not sure if I make the coffee too strong or too weak, but no one has complained yet. I have even learned that it is pretty easy to make coffee in a large party percolator pot, a task that was completely foreign to me before.

I still add a flavored creamer to the coffee, but I am really starting to like the mocha flavor on its own. My favorite flavor creamer is hazelnut. I have also tried a type of hazelnut flavored coffee concentrate syrup that can be used in baking and with ice cream and I am really starting to develop a taste for it as well.

My husband says it is only a matter of time before I start drinking coffee straight up black, with nothing added. I am not so sure, but not so long ago I wouldn't have thought of myself as a coffee drinker. Go figure. Time will tell.