# When did you start drinking coffee?



## jryans10 (Nov 16, 2012)

Hi all,

Probrably a similar thread exists somewhere else







.

I'm Just wondering, when did you start drinking coffee and what your first experiences were (i.e. did you like it?)

I started drinking it mainly a few years back when I started uni, I must admit I didn't like it very much as I drank it mainly for the caffeine to keep me awake, but I have grown fond of it! I enjoy making it as well. I guess I'm at that age where I favour hot drinks compared to drinking fizzy drinks regularly.

Cheers,

John.


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## Drewster (Dec 1, 2013)

I probably *started *drinking coffee about the same as you..... When I went to/shortly before Uni.

Unfortunately (for me) that was many decades ago!!

I have drunk it (in some form or another) almost endlessly since then...

It has bee suggested that I once refused the offer of a cup of coffee - but this was never proven.

However for many of those decades I would drink anything that had a passing relationship to an actual coffee bean!

In my defence "real" coffee was often as rare as "real" ale for many years (I don't know what the coffee equivalent to Brew IX is but I but I probably drank it).


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## Dylan (Dec 5, 2011)

Only started to enjoy the taste of coffee a couple of years back, weaned myself onto it with hazelnut lattes from Costa.

Plenty of parents seem to be happy to wean their kids onto it at a young age by giving them 'babychinos' (hot milk with choch on top) which has always baffled me. Like giving you kid grape juice and telling them its 'babywine', or giving them some rolled up paper and calling it a 'babycig', cant see how it is ever sensible to teach your kids about drinking the drugs us adults take from such a young age.

This may all be a bit melodramatic, I expect most kids probably stop with the babychinos before they even think about the real stuff.


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## Brewdog (Jun 29, 2014)

I started on instant coffee (with the occasional French Press) as a nipper (


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## Pyro (Jun 28, 2014)

Brewdog said:


> I started on instant coffee (with the occasional French Press) as a nipper (
> 
> Pretty much the same for me here I went 'through the ranks' as I'd personally describe it over the years Instant to french press/filter to high street chains to independent shops to my own budget setup.
> 
> Now looking to upgrade to what everyone on here will call entry level which I'd never of dreamed on spending a year or two ago!


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## Charliej (Feb 25, 2012)

Through the dim mists of time I recall that the 1st time I ever drank a coffee was whilst on a camping holiday in Italy and then France with my parents and brother at the age of 5, but as long as I can remember there has always been the smell of coffee brewing at home from percolator to Cona and moka pot and via various drip machines and cafetieres and home espresso machines to where I'm at today so a grand total of 42 years drinking coffee and counting.


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## Wando64 (Feb 28, 2011)

I know it sounds crazy, but my mother in Italy used to give me a caffelatte as a child before bedtime.

Same in the morning.

Never had problems sleeping.


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## frandavi99 (Jun 8, 2014)

Seems there's a bit of a trend. I started at uni as well, decided I needed to drink coffee to be taken seriously as an adult.

Started on black instant, progressed to French press at home and americanos when out. Recently discovered pour over in Australia last year and make espresso at home with varying degrees of success.


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## coldplayer (Oct 3, 2013)

Back in the 60's (yes, when everything was in black and white and every man worked down't pit.... ask your parents) I was taken to the barbers (I had hair then) and we passed a shop that had a coffee roaster in the window. As you went past you got the wonderful smell of roasting coffee. It was mentioned at my nan's one day and she made "her special coffee" for me. It was Camp coffee... a nasty chicory coffee in a bottle (again, ask your parents....lol)

That was the start of my conversion from Robinson's orange juice (and the occasional cup of Brooke bond tea) over to the dark side of coffee. The journey has been traumatic, from Mellow Birds coffee (ask your....well you've got the idea now) to Maxwell house, to single origin coffees of today.

My Xmas treat was a small amount of Jamaican Blue Mountain, but that was in the mid/late 70's, and that came from the same shop that I passed as a lad. I can remember all that so clearly and am sure the smell from that shop was the catalyst for my coffee habits of today.


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## CamV6 (Feb 7, 2012)

My two year old baby girl already drinks espresso if I leave my cup unattended for two seconds and within reach. She loves it! When I have finished my cup a little residue always forms in the bottom if the cup and she will routinely tabletop that also! She'll swig that and then hand the cup to me and demand "more". When I make a shot she's always ponting at the cup and asking with those big blue eyes "some" or "me too"! When I make a latte for her mum the little one alway hassles her for "some" as well so I try make decaffs for the wife whenever the little one is about so they can share it. She even has a little toy espresso machine she loves making herself "kofe" on. Thankfully she doesn't seem to mind that it's actually only cold water.


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## Scotford (Apr 24, 2014)

At 16 with a cafetiere when I first started working.

Seriously upped my knowledge 2 years later in NZ on a gap year and have never looked back.


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## sonia (Jul 2, 2014)

when i was 7 years old then i taken my first coffee drink ........ Not bad


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## VJC (Apr 23, 2014)

Instant & High Street chains a decade ago at Uni, then a couple of years ago I bought delonghi drip machine in the Christmas Sales and it made better coffee (for my palate) than either instant or Costabucks. I was happily buying pre-ground coffee for about a year until I decided to start buying beans - my brother bought me a "grinder" (electric blade grinder that's actually great for chopping herbs & spices but has a now useless "coffee attachment"). It was whilst I was researching the possibility of freezing or refrigerating beans that I found this place a few months ago and realised I'd been sold lies. I've 'lost' the delonghi & whittards stuff (save some syrups that are left) and now have a solid, if very basic, home set-up. And thanks to Scott Rao's "everything but espresso" I actually understand lots of the jargon on here now too!

Next steps are an electric burr grinder upgrade to my porlex and an actual espresso machine to add to my my lovely Areopress\mokka pot\various brew equipment - all of which make great coffee, just not espresso. But I have to really upgrade my knowledge before I do more than get that eureka mignon I've had my eye on.


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## Xpenno (Nov 12, 2012)

It must have been about 8 years ago now but I've only had a home setup for about the last three years.

One of the guys I shared an office with at work had a Gaggia Cubika which he brought in and we ordered beans and made espresso in the office. We used to brew all sorts of dark roasted stuff back in the day, my tastes have changed now but we certainly used to rock a monsoon malabar or lava java. It was the only thing that got us through the working day









I'm not sure if I liked it or just grew to like it back then.


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## Flibster (Aug 15, 2010)

I was 7 or 8 when I started. Would have been some crappy instant. Then family started to go to france and we got Carte Noir and similar vacuum packed bricks of ground coffee.

Over 6th form and uni I had the traditional bodum french press and so on. Actually, had 2 bodums. One got, errr... re-purposed...

Few years later on, bought a decent ceramic filter cone and a zassenhaus hand grinder *both of which I still have* and started getting some locally roasted coffee from in town. It was a big step up from the preground stuff I had lived on before that.

2007 - I buy a Iberital MC2 and a Gaggia Classic and more importantly, I discover Hasbean... I can still remember my first order, it had that much of an impact on me. Hasbean Premium Espresso Blend, Australian Skyberry and Bolivia Machacamarca.


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## oop north (Jun 23, 2013)

Didn't drink until I started work and there was nothing else to drink at clients (when out and about doing audits during my training contract) so started from September 1985. Initially added sugar as didn't like the taste but soon ditched that. About 1990 I bought a filter machine, followed by various filter / percolator machines over the period to March 2012 when I bought an aeropress. My children (11 + 13 in a couple of months) won't try coffee though they like the smell


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## Pompeyexile (Dec 2, 2013)

Started on instant as a pup no more than 7 or 8 then in my early twenty's for reason I can't even remember, stopped drinking both tea and coffee completely. I'm now 55 going on 56 and last year decided because as I said I couldn't remember why on earth I stopped I would start drinking both again, as I always loved the smell of coffee and a freshly brewed pot of tea. But as is my way, I thought if I'm going to drink it NO bags or instant; only tea leaves properly brewed for no less than 4 to 5 minutes and real ground coffee.

Surfing the web brought me here and the rest as they say is history. No I still haven't reached coffee Nirvana but I'm loving the ritual the process and even the end results, even if it has to have milk in it to stop me gurning like a camel sucking a lemon. It still beats anything Messrs Nescafe, Kenco, Maxwell, Douwe Egberts or any other purveyor of so called drinking coffee for the uneducated masses produce.


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## m4lcs67 (Mar 16, 2014)

If memory serves me I started out with Nescafe Original (everyone has to start somewhere) while living away with my then girlfriend at her parents house. They drank it and I suppose I fell in with it, but I always remember enjoying freshly brewed coffee in a cafetiere if we were out anywhere.

It was 5 years ago when I bought my Gaggia Classic brand new and started making my own, however it was using pre-ground coffee.

It wasn't until a couple of months ago when I bought my Mignon and started to grind my own beans that I have managed to get the full coffee experience as it was intended. I have finally arrived.


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## aFiercePancake (Dec 8, 2013)

I remember the precise day I had my first coffee.

It was 1989 and I was riding my motorcycle from Stuart, Florida back to Knoxville, Tennessee. Because it is an all-day ride, I thought I would be smart by starting out in the wee hours. Unfortunately, the small fairing on my bike was not ready for my return, so I rode without it. Fast forward to near hypothermia and a rest-stop break near Ocala for the sun to come out. I set out again, but now exhausted. Somewhere near Lake City I drifted asleep for a second. While riding. I remember a silver Nissan Pathfinder woke me up as it passed by on the left. Yes, I was still upright-old BMW airheads will track straight and true by themselves. Suffice it to say that I got off at the next exit and got my first coffee at a Stuckeys.

While living in Morocco over the next two years, I was fascinated by the four-group spring-lever machine at my favored café. I was introduced to Euro-style coffee drinks.

The rest has veered much farther off the highway. No crashes yet.


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