Once you go black...

About a year ago, I started drinking coffee black.

I don't know what facilitated this change in my habits, but it seems to fit into a decade-long pattern: I went from milk with three sugars (yes, I know) to milk with one, to just the coffee.

And I like it.

Twin Peaks' FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, renowned coffee aficionado.

In fact, I have no idea why I ever drank it with milk in the first place. In its unadulterated form, coffee is what other beverages dream that they might be when the grow up: strong, flavoursome and with that caffeine burst that kicks you in the back of the knee, slaps you around the head and screams "GOOD MORNING!" right in your face.

But it's also much more subtle and I have - I'm sorry to admit - become something of a coffee snob since going 'no lait'. While I still guzzle back freeze-dried instant - because who has time to percolate on a school day, right? - the cheaper brands just don't cut it anymore. Instant coffee is the epitome of a utilitarian solution.

This has resulted in my becoming less forgiving towards those outlets that use poor quality beans, or murder them during the brewing process.

A bold statement

Now, when I buy a to-go coffee, whether from Starbucks, Costa or *shudder* Nero, I tend to order a latte. There are a couple of reasons for this: a black coffee will generally take too long to cool down on its own (and I'm a gulper with little/no patience) and the milk can easily cover any bean-related sins. Or at least take the edge off.

There is a cafe that I walk past every day but never enter (their idea of 'breakfast' is fruit, porridge and seeds - I doubt that there is any bacon on the premises) but once - feeling that pang of caffeine desire - I went in and ordered a coffee.

It was a  small black coffee to go and was without question the worst cup of coffee that I've ever had.

Seriously.

Where was the flavour? The taste (not the burnt aftertaste, mind - there was plenty of that) was almost non existent. It was watery and thin and wanted to be put out of its misery. If I'd there had been a nearby barn, I would have taken this coffee around the back of it with a shotgun and done the merciful thing. *

I digress. Coffee is wonderful: it's good for you or at least not bad for you if as with anything else in life it is taken in moderation.

Although not, as it turns out, with milk and sugar.

This guy.

* You know what, I don't think that they deserve anonymity for such a reprehensible brew.  It was Yorks on Newhall Street.  FOR SHAME!