I never liked coffee.  The bitter smell of a brewing pot that saturated the halls and filled my nose when I awoke for school always upset my stomach.  I could never imagine coating my insides in a putrid black liquid – much less enjoying it.  I remember thinking that when the time came for me to learn to like coffee – which inevitably would happen on a late night in my college dorm – I would have to fill my cup with two-thirds sugar and cream to even be able to swallow.  I was stubborn about this – I would never truly like coffee.  I never expected that to change.
    
     I’ve always liked coffee shops though.  Considering myself an artistic person and falling into the inescapable trap of pretension, I’ve spent many hours sitting at a colorfully painted table, sipping a chai latte and writing bad poetry.  It’s limiting to not like coffee at a store that sells primarily coffee, but I maneuvered my way around the menu, asking the employees to make me special hot chocolates and flavored teas.  The people in the shop were always peculiar and distinct and interesting.  I watched girls in plaid skirts meet boys in backwards caps and shyly laugh when their feet touched under the table.  I listened to a guitarist nervously sing an original song at “Open Mic” night and apologize when he strummed the wrong chord.  I smiled at the little girl with wild blonde curls who called the employees by name and played board games with her dad.
     But I was an occasional customer, an easily forgettable face.  It wasn’t until I began to notice a certain employee with skinny arms and thick glasses that I started going everyday after school.  He was friendly to me – admittedly to everyone who came in – and after a few months of ordering bubble teas, I could see in the spark of his eyes that he was beginning to recognize my long brown hair and hesitant smile. 
     To say that I became infatuated with him would be a serious understatement.  For awhile, I kept my fascination a secret – I was slightly embarrassed and thought very few people would understand what it was that I saw in him.  But when my friends came with me to the shop to do homework on Sunday afternoons, they could see straight through me.  I was in love with a barista.  It was this on running joke between myself and everyone I came across because for some reason, once I started talking about his black hole magnetism, I could never stop. 
     I say all this only to emphasize the intense power he had over me.  In short, he is the reason I tried coffee in the first place.  I wanted him to know that I was adventurous and that I valued his opinion, so I took his recommendations and tried a variety of sugary lattes.  It very well could have been a brain association situation, where drinking coffee made me think dreamily of him.  But I’m so thankful that I was given the privilege of falling for his rare but endearing smile and unique voice. And there will always be a coffee-shaped stain deep in my heart.
     My experience with coffee was a profoundly soulful one.  I find it hard to believe that I will ever sip a Spanish latte and not think of the colorful art hanging on the walls, the sweet smell seeping into my clothes, and his kind face greeting me as I walked into the coffee shop.  There may be many more baristas and cups of coffee in my future, but I will never forget my first.