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My arm was sore from pressing down on my AeroPress. This is less of an indicator of the difficulty of an AeroPress and more of a signifier that I have weak arms.
Each morning, I maintain the exact same routine. I press snooze, I wake up, I shower, I do whatever a normal person does at the sink, I get dressed, and I heat up some water in my electric kettle to use with my aforementioned AeroPress. I then take my hot coffee and immediately ice it and top it off with water, thus creating the hippie version of an iced americano.
But this morning was different. After Alexa notified me that it was a crisp 39 degrees outside, I decided to do something I hadn’t done in months. Forgoing the ice, I simply topped my coffee off with equally hot water creating your standard americano. Leaving the comforts of my apartment draped in my a new barn coat and a tote bag I’ve been using as my makeshift briefcase, I walked to my car to start the day.
Then, the horror. Two sips in, I realized what I had done. Nearly burning my tongue and spilling it down the front of myself, I knew the mistake had already been made. I deviated from my standard coffee and found myself regretting every decision I had made in my life that led to this one single hot coffee.
Going to any normal coffee shop — Starbucks, Peet’s, the hipster spot down the street that offers pourover — will yield you some bizarre looks when you order an iced beverage in the dead of winter. It doesn’t matter if it’s 42 degrees in Texas or hovering just above zero during a snowstorm in New York City, people will think you’re borderline insane for ordering a cold coffee drink if the temperature is below fifty.
When I started drinking coffee, I went drip. Straight black. Diesel fuel. But as my coffee journey progressed, I began ordering that of the colder variety. Iced coffees, iced americanos, iced everything. I never took to cold brew because it just tastes like leftover hot coffee that someone put in the fridge, but I still respect it.
While most coffee drinkers will make a fall transition from cold to hot, I’ve maintained my post without wavering. I’m not drinking coffee to warm up — I’m drinking it to kickstart my day. This isn’t the old days when central heat didn’t exist and hot beverages were used to raise your core temperature. If anything, I need to cool down. I run hot. Every morning when I walk into the office and I see the thermostat at 73, I feel suffocated.
Maybe iced coffee is how I combat that. Not only does it give me the caffeine boost I need in order to be productive, but it’s also refreshing while leaving me with a cup full of ice I can chew (only to subsequently piss off my coworkers — I don’t care). If you don’t like my ice chewing, get some noise-canceling headphones.
I’m not trying to sway you one way or the other. I’m not here to convert hot coffee drinkers into iced americano drinkers. No, quite the opposite. I’m here to suppress the narrative that you’re not supposed to drink chilled espresso drinks from November to March. Let me do as I please, even if that means watering down perfectly good coffee with a shit-ton of ice cubes. .
Respond
Will
Will (Twitter / Instagram) is the host of The Sunday Scaries Podcast.
@willdefries
@willdefries
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will@grandex.co
Aggressively defending your meaningless lifestyle choices. – PGP
I think they’re just trying to start conversations on random topics because the comment spigot is running really dry since Black Thursday or whatever day of the week it was when shit hit the fan over at Grandex.
To be fair, I’ve written columns about a lot more trivial things than this.
Can’t afford their staff but will run the thermostat at 73.
Do people stop drinking cold water in winter? What about iced tea, do people stop drinking that when its cold outside? I didn’t think so. I’ll continue to order all my caffeinated beverages on ice because I’m not trying to burn my esophagus and it just takes better cold. Correct take, Will.
2018: Where contrived narratives go to be suppressed by their creators.
Year round iced coffee drinker from Minneapolis checking in, don’t care if it makes me psycho it tastes better.
Would kill for a thermostat at 73! My office “heat” rarely works correctly. The thermometer i have on my desk was reading 64 the other day.
Hot coffee all year long. I did iced coffee one time and my body almost had a seizure. Can’t trust it, man.
If you prefer cold brew/iced coffee, that’s fine. But dumping ice on a hot coffee is just getting the caffeine. Might as well just do caffeine pills
Nah, fam.
Imagine thinking Kawhi Leonard is moody. He’s literally the most low maintenance superstar there is, the Spurs just completely disrespected the man, and mishandled the situation. They couldn’t just let the man take a year to rehab in peace? It’s his body, and his prime NBA playing window, and you have to respect that. Was glad to see him disengage and look elsewhere because any other organization in the league would’ve let him be. Front office, Coach Pop, and Tony Parker should be ashamed of themselves. Couldn’t be my organization.
I’m this way too. Hot coffee is always too hot and then by the time I remember to drink it, it’s lukewarm so I just skip the step where it’s hot. I hide mine inside a yeti so I don’t catch too much flack, but I’m definitely the coffee equivalent of the dude that wears running shorts year round. I hear a lot of “cold brew? In this weather?”
38 degrees here in TTown and an Iced Coffee on the my desk. Consistency is key in life.
Set my coffee cup on the roof of my car (which was iced over, as is fairly rare in Houston) and the son-of-a-bitch slid off and spilled all over the door sill and interior. Coffee mistakes can make or break a morning. Hopefully the neighbor’s kid wasn’t outside waiting on the bus to hear all the f-bombs I let loose.
You need to get on that metal tumbler life. I typically don’t go to starbucks but once I bought my 32 oz yeti there and they filled it up for like $0.50. People forget that you can get a discounted drink there if you bring your own cup.
This meant to be reply to Serena from LA, I don’t know why it’s showing as an independent comment.