Why drinking coffee at home is odd

I have odd coffee habits. When changes to those habits occur (such as a move, a change in my commute, a change in job location, etc.) I really get thrown off.

Slightly panicking is probably a more accurate description.

I have no clue why, but for some reason I just am not crazy about coffee at home. It can be the best darn coffee in the world (and the stuff Bogdan buys is pretty darn good) but I just don't drink it. I will, if need be. But when faced with an option, I choose to go out. It's more of a ritual than a drink in the morning. I enjoy the process of heading to a coffee shop (on foot or by car), making small talk with my familiar baristas, and being on my way with a hot cup of tasty coffee.

This all started in Mandeville. I grew up near New Orleans, which is well known for it's coffee (among other things), so I never was very far from decent coffee. However, as a young one in high school, I had no desire to drink coffee. That is until I first tried a freeze at Caffe Caffe. I don't know how or why that drink ever landed in front of me (Katherine, do you remember??) but from that point on I was addicted. A freeze is a frozen coffee, made in a daiquiri-style machine (not a blender), which means it freezes and churns itself all day long in it's undeniable french vanilla goodness. Caffe Caffe would also whip you up a Freeze Float, which added in ice cream, chocolate syrup and whipped cream for good measure.

It's a wonder I didn't gain weight in high school?

My friends and I would spend hours in Caffe Caffe on weeknights and weekends drinking our freezes through a straw and gossiping and planning whatever silly thing we would be doing later. It was a tradition. And it was tasty.

When I moved to Baton Rouge for college, I was suddenly cut off from my weekly freeze floats and floundered around like a fish out of water wondering what would fill that wide open void. CC's Coffee quickly stepped in. At CC's I had several drinks I liked and they were no longer caloric nightmares (e.g. a drip coffee with a couple of pumps of caramel syrup). It all worked out perfectly because I could buy a coffee at CC's and spend the day in the coffee shop studying.

My daily coffee habit didn't truly start until I got my first full time job. My route to work passed right by a CC's, so every morning there I was in line with my travel mug ready for the caramel-y coffee to perk me up for the work day ahead.

Still, any and every time I made my way home to Mandeville, I'd make sure to pick up at least one Freeze during the trip. Caffe Caffe eventually closed in Mandeville (sad, sad day), but the location across the lake in New Orleans is still open, which made getting a Freeze a little more difficult, but I most definitely found ways to make it work.

When we moved to Maryland, I was naturally worried about the coffee situation. The first year we were here I would drive to Panera every morning for a cup of coffee (and sometimes a bagel too) before heading to the train station parking lot. When we moved to our new house and I started walking to the train station, I quickly switched to Frederick Coffee Company for my before work joe. Now I have several options to choose from in Frederick (including Cafe Nola which only charges me $1 because I always bring my own mug) and barring any unexpected closures or changes in my commute, all is well on the coffee front.

And then last month when I was in Louisiana, my sister asked me if I wanted to try her iced coffee. Being that it was August in Louisiana I could not turn it down, and when I took my first sip I was shocked that I was basically drinking a Caffe Caffe freeze. They use a Toddy cold brew system to make their iced coffee and I neither have one of those nor am planning to buy one, so I unabashedly drank as many cups as possible during the short time I was there.

A few weeks later I was browsing Pinterest (always a wonderful time suck) and found a recipe for iced coffee. It sounded easy enough: 1 part coffee and 8 parts water; steep for 8 hours; pour through strainer; refrigerate. So I made it. Then I called my sister and asked for the ingredients, which simply enough was iced coffee, milk, and the liquid coffeemate french vanilla.

For the past few days I've been enjoying an afternoon "freeze" in the form of iced coffee. This afternoon, while sipping on my iced drink, I started thinking how strange it was to be drinking coffee at home—probably one of the most un-strange things for most people. But, as I've just outlined, my coffee drinking habits have always been far from the norm.