Sip Happens

For everyone who’s ever faked a smile and steeped strong opinions.

Let’s get this out of the way.
I don’t just dislike coffee.
I loathe it—with the fiery passion of a thousand scorched taste buds.

I can already hear the gasps from behind porcelain cups. I’m sure those of you who are reading this are reeling in horror, clutching your chest or gasping dramatically.
But let me explain—before I’m cast out of brunch circles and removed from every beverage-related gift card list.

I remember the delectable scent of it drifting from the kitchen counter when I was young. That forbidden drink my mother’s fingers curled around every morning, her mug cradled like a sacred ritual. She’d pour herself more than one, and I’d watch, thinking:
This is the answer to adulthood.

One day, she looked at me, eyes softening, and asked the question I’d longed for:
“Would you like to try it?”
I was elated. My heart skipped beats.
It felt a little like swearing—something naughty, something only parents were allowed to do.

I shuffled over, inhaled deeply, and took a drink.
My nose wrinkled. My eyes scrunched.
My soul briefly packed a bag and left my body in betrayal.
Once the flavor skipped past my taste buds, all that remained was bitterness.

She laughed and said, “You’ll grow to like it someday.”
I’m almost 40 now.
Still waiting.

My ride-or-die barista buddy tries to convert me every chance she gets. She pulls up to the coffee window and orders the sweetest, frothiest, most whipped-cream-laden brew they’ll allow.
“You have got to taste this!” she says, eyes wild with caffeine.
I give her a skeptical look. “I highly doubt I’ll enjoy it.”

But she’s determined to enroll me into a sorority I never wanted to join.
Every once in a while, she convinces me and I discover one that doesn’t immediately attack my soul. Sometimes I even think, Huh… maybe that wasn’t too bad?

Then I sip again… and somehow, it leaves me contemplating ordering it for myself.
I make a mental note to give it one more chance.

After the Boston Tea Party, when crates of precious sweetness were hurled into the sea (what did tea ever do to them?), drinking the leaf became un-American. A statement: We don’t need you for the crime of taxation without representation.
You’d think tea would’ve earned a little respect. A symbol of our rebellion.

But no. It became a quiet protest against tyranny and deliciousness instead.
And yet here I am—an above-29-year-old woman, trying desperately to uphold the dreams of my revolution-loving ancestors.
Ordering tea in public, and still managing to make people think I’m betraying the founding fathers with every sip.
Because—how could anyone not like coffee, right?

Still, I make another attempt. I order a drink I didn’t completely hate that I once sampled.
I sit down with my laptop, take a few sips, pretending to be one of them.
Not bad.
Then a few more.
And it hits me—this is still revolting.

I stare into the abyss of my roasted brew and question every decision that led me here.
I try to justify my life choices.
To seem less like the unpatriotic oddball quietly carrying contraband in my purse.
Americans don’t drink steeped blends—
except Southerners.
Where sweet tea is its own food group and doesn’t count.

So I do what any desperate, tea-loving imposter would do.
I discreetly tiptoe past the mixologists of espresso—to take my brew to the empty bathroom.
I make it inside without a single sideways glance, dump it like crime scene evidence, and crank the faucet.
I scrub the aftermath off my hands, dragging my palms across a cold metal grate, and hang my head in shame.

But let me make something clear: I am very far from being un-American.
In the suburbs outside Chicago, when all my friends listened to metal, goth, rock, or emo—
I wore cowboy boots and listened to country music.
Yet I was the one they all made fun of.
While all the city kids were going to youth nightclubs,
I was tackling farm chores in exchange for riding lessons.
I married a soldier.
And somehow, I’m the one who absolutely despises Java.
But I do. I really, truly do.

So I got back in line inside the chapel of liquid syrups, trying not to look like someone who’d just flushed her last sin.
The barista raised an eyebrow.
“Did you drink the entire cup I gave you that quickly?”
My eyes widened.
“Ughhh—yes? I’m practically jolt-juice deficient.”
She laughed. “I get that. I’m exhausted, too.”
I smiled, then put on my big-girl panties and proudly ordered a hot, caffeinated tea latte—
like a boss in farm attire.
Not because I’m anti-American.
But because coffee is a disgrace.

I love my infusion black—like how my heart feels when someone offers me a cup of that roasted regret.
I swirl in cream like it’s a declaration of independence.
With floral notes that sing my country’s national anthem.
And sugar? That’s not optional.
It’s Southern diplomacy in a cup.