I remember the first moment I tried what we today call 'Specialty Coffee.' I had been drinking a lot of coffee while in college -- Maxwell House brewed through a Mr. Coffee maker -- while pulling all-nighters; trying to fit university life and working life into each twenty-four hour day. Then, in my junior year, a coffee shop opened up across the street from campus. I walked in, ordered a cappuccino, and I was immediately hooked. (I wrote about this recently in a blog entry.)
It was an eye-opening moment for me (pun not intended). It was the realization that the mass-produced stuff I had been drinking all of these years was horrible; and I felt as if information had been deliberately hidden from me. I used to think that coffee tasted good, but was an 'acquired taste.' Now, I realized, that one did not really have to acquire much to have a taste for coffee. It could, if you will, be much more 'user-friendly.'
Thinking about all of this reminds me of the famous Apple commercial which came out in 1984 to introduce the Macintosh. In a sense, we live in a world in which we've been brainwashed to have lower expectations than we should. However, this does not have to be so.
The coffee you've been drinking can be much better; much more enjoyable. We're selling ourselves short by reducing it to a mere medication. It should be more pleasant to consume than chewing a bitter caffeine tablet. Instead, it should be one of the joys of life. That's why, as part of our mission here at Rube's, our goal is to communicate how wonderful the world of coffee can be. We aim to help make it more user-friendly. In coffee, no year needs to be like 1984.
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