This Coffee Makes Me Feel.....Ridiculous

I admit it, I'm a weird person. Tonight I went to Starbucks for this coffee seminar. I had heard from a friend who has done several coffee seminars himself that these are rather poetic affairs where people share their feelings about coffee in descriptive phrases. I was ready for anything.

Here comes the part where my weirdness kicks in. I entered the Starbucks but did not want to appear to have arrived for the coffee seminar. I figured I'd order a drink and open my book and then "just happen" to be there at the time of the seminar. It worked. Grant, the faithful coffee seminar instructor, asked me if I would like to join the little shin dig. I said, "sure" as if it was an unexpected surprise.

So Grant gets started with brewing the coffee and shares his first experience of drinking coffee himself. He then asked if anyone else had a story of their first experience with coffee, good or bad. At this point I was pretty glad a friend I had asked to go wasn't able to, because it was beyond cheesy.

There were few words shared at first, but as we savored the coffee, people began to open up about its taste and texture. I assumed liquid kind of had the same texture, but I kind of got the point.

Before I go on, let me school you on the fine science of coffee tasting. Fortunately someone asked for cream and sugar. Normal coffee tastings involve black coffee, which I was pretty sure would make me gag. Now for the steps.

Step 1: Cup your palm around the sample cup and sniff the aroma. While doing this bite your lip to keep from laughing from the absurdity of it all.
Step 2: Slurp the coffee and let it flow over your tongue. Continue to feel like you're a hippie.
Step 3: Try some free pastry samples with the coffee, to see how the tastes go together. Wonder how God brought you to this place of sampling random coffee in the midwest.
Step 4: Compare the coffee prepared in the regular pot with the coffee prepared in some French-like smashing thing. Realize that you have to write a blog about this later.
Step 5: Share your feelings. Try to take it seriously.

I do admit that I was suprised at the taste of the coffee, it's actually something I would drink. I thought I had to have mochas or something a little sweeter than brewed coffee, but it was oddly pleasant.

Poor Grant, I wonder if he felt like rather ridiculous. He exemplified patience when a guy from a non-profit launched into a sales pitch for his organization and the troubles that the community faces.

The only thing that would have made this coffee seminar better would have been Rachel and her video camera.