Decaf Coffee
I only recently started drinking coffee. I often face people asking me how I can survive, or go through work hours, without coffee. Well, I love and drink tea instead, but it's not for caffeine. I don't drink coffee simply because my body cannot take too much caffeine, and I didn't like the taste of americano. Here in Korea, when you go to a cafe and order a coffee without specifying anything, they will hand you a cup of americano with ice cubes, no matter the season. We have a word for it, 아아 (sounds "ah-ah"; for ice americano). Apart from the taste, coffee seemed to mess up my stomach and to make my heart beats fast abnormally. One of my cousins has the same symptom, so I guess it's genetic.
Then, since last year, my partner started taking coffee classes, and I learned about the world of specialty coffee. For a present, I bought her a hand grinder so that she can make pour over coffee at home. I was reluctant to try coffee first because of my previous relationship with coffee. Knowing that my issue has to do with caffeine, I found some decaffeinated coffee beans and started drinking them more and more often. Indeed, decaf coffee didn't make me sick, yay!
For some time now, having a morning coffee has become a routine. I've been purchasing the same bean from a roastery for months. And I enjoy discovering new coffee beans. Coffee scene in Seoul is apparently quite big. There are a couple of big annual events about coffee. Last week, I went to a coffee and bakery fair with my partner and picked up two new beans, all decaf. I love them so much! One is called cherry peach which really smells and tastes like cherry and peach. It's just amazing how they produce this sort of coffee. For a long time, coffee just tastes like burnt beans. I am excited to try new coffee. Another one is called midnight whatever, I forgot, and it has a strong note of fermentation. My partner typically like heavily fermented ones that do not taste anything like typical coffee. I just wanted to find out what's so appealing to her.
One thing I noticed in the fair was that there were some "watermelon" noted coffees because it's summer already. To my surprise, they really smell and taste like watermelon. My partner explain me how that could be possible, but it still feels like a magic to me.
That's it. I've become a coffee drinker now. I still love tea and own 40 or so bags of tea. But I understand the appeal of coffee. My partner told me that people sometimes expressed a tea-like note in coffee. To me, coffee is maybe a part of my tea collection. I will share about my tea collection on this blog later.