Making Coffee Is Something That Takes Patience. Tea, Not So Much.

I’m an American, but I can shed my boastful mentality and admit that I don’t understand tea.

Not all tea, mind you, just the way Americans know it. To enjoy a cup, you must boil water, steep a bag, and call it a day. There’s not much to it and I can’t identify with a country that thinks otherwise.

No, my heart is lazily treading in a cup of coffee. I think coffee is American — which I say with full awareness — knowing that one depends on the hard work of others to bring the desired drink into our hands. Coffee is built on labor and must be cared for and perfected in order to unleash its full potential. You can’t just throw beans in a boiling pot to create a perfect cup, you need patience.

You also need destruction. Those beans have to be absolutely pulverized in order to be rebuilt—a process which captures the essence of the product. Those beans are roasted, crushed and ground to bits before they’re brought together in union with water, milk, and sugar. Unless you take your coffee black.

You’re not my cup of tea, you’re my mug of coffee — because I hold you close to my heart. You change the chemistry of my brain and shoot off all these signals that I can only describe as: confusingly wonderful. What we have isn’t simple — like an overheated bag of leaves — but blissfully complicated. What we have is a bond—not unlike the milk and sugar that compliments the flavor of ground beans and hot water.

You’re not my cup of tea, because coffee has always meant more to me. I understand coffee, but that kind of took me a while. I remember the first time I had a cup. It wasn’t exactly right, but I got hooked. Over the years, coffee and I have gotten to know each other, because I couldn’t get away from it. It wasn’t something I grew to love, but rather something I always loved and grew to know.

You’re not my cup of tea, because I need you near me. Tea is for cold days — coffee is for every single day. I suppose I’m not your cup of tea either, because my crooked smile appears every time you tell me you need me.

I remember when you and I first drank coffee together.

Well, not the very first time—but the first time in a long time. You had your back to a portrait of the world and I couldn’t help but think the two of us and our mugs were the amalgamation of everything I had been waiting for.

I knew you felt similarly, but that took some convincing. It took finesse for damn sure and I was persistent. I never gave up, because you never gave up. Though, I suppose we’re not coffee… we’re more than that and you can’t condense years of uncharted feelings into a physical incarnation. Coffee is the most practical way to describe how I feel about you: You’re my cup of coffee, because I love you and you keep me warm.