“You don’t have to force yourself to drink it.”
When I took another sip of coffee and frowned, my older sister chuckled and said,
“If it’s too bitter, you can add syrup… There’s also sugar here. Or maybe caramel sauce or drizzle.”
Even though it was mainly a bakery, my sister was quite passionate about coffee, so she had a lot of coffee-related items.
Of course, many of the coffees she made for me weren’t on the menu yet. Like she said, some of her creations were far sweeter than they were bitter.
Drinks where the syrup was poured so generously that the characteristic dark black of Americano or espresso turned into a pale brown.
“But, that’s a bit…”
I hesitated slightly as I spoke.
Of course, it tasted good. Adding condensed milk or using way more milk than coffee to neutralize the bitterness wasn’t bad.
It’s like how cocoa on its own is bitter, but when you mix it with milk and sugar to make chocolate, it becomes delicious.
Similarly, if you add a ton of syrup, bitter coffee turns into something entirely different.
But when you mix all sorts of things like that, doesn’t it inevitably end up closer to instant coffee than café coffee?
Honestly, the taste was similar enough that it was hard to deny. Sure, the quantity was usually much larger than a single packet of instant coffee, but still.
It felt like I couldn’t fully appreciate the coffee itself.
No, I can’t definitively say that thought is wrong. After all, I still didn’t know how to enjoy coffee 100 percent.
If I focused hard, I could barely make out what people called the “coffee aroma,” but I hadn’t yet learned to truly enjoy that unique bitterness and sourness of coffee.
Maybe that’s why I felt like—
“You think it’s because you’re not grown-up enough?”
My sister spoke with a teasing smile. Her eyes narrowed slightly, and the corners of her lips curled upward in a smile so beautiful that I was momentarily mesmerized.
“Uh, no, it’s not that….”
Well, to be honest, I did think that. That I wasn’t grown-up enough.
When I was younger, I kind of admired adults like that.
People who could casually drink bitter coffee or down a shot of alcohol and exhale with a satisfied “Ahh.” But me? Coffee was one thing, but I absolutely couldn’t drink alcohol. There were a few times I was offered some expensive liquor at taverns in Erellecia, but each time, I struggled to pretend it tasted good.
At least with alcohol, it’s an acceptable drink to grimace at, so that was a relief.
Tea was the same. Kalia, who came from a noble family, and Dana, who routinely stayed up all night researching, could easily drink strong, unadulterated tea. Even Arna, though she didn’t come from a tea-drinking culture, quickly adapted to tea due to her habit of drinking various bitter herbal concoctions as an elf.
Fia was no different. She didn’t brew her tea as strong as Kalia or Dana, but she still enjoyed the essence of the tea itself. In Erellecia, sugar was both a luxury and a strategic resource, so the idea of dumping sugar into tea was nearly unthinkable.
Then again, tea itself was an expensive commodity. Fia’s preference for light tea was simply a habit she developed from childhood. The fact that she even got to enjoy tea at all was thanks to growing up in a church, or so I’d heard.
As for me… Well, I could handle tea brewed lightly, like Fia’s, to the point where I could appreciate its aroma. But honestly, I still preferred plain cold water. Or sweetened drinks made with fruit juice.
Maybe because I couldn’t handle those “sophisticated” beverages well, I felt a little envious of people who could sip them effortlessly. It felt like… I was the only one who hadn’t grown up.
That’s probably why I kept trying to drink plain coffee.
Because I wanted to become the kind of adult I thought was cool when I was a kid.
Actually, at my current age, I could definitely be considered an adult in the eyes of my younger self. After all, I was even a war veteran of sorts in Erellecia.
“Hmm.”
But that only made me feel more embarrassed, so I couldn’t bring myself to answer. Despite being old enough to call myself an adult, I still couldn’t fully enjoy the drinks adults seemed to love.
My sister glanced at me for a moment and then said, tapping the café’s espresso machine lightly with her hand,
“This.”
“Do you know where the espresso this machine makes comes from?”
“Uh… Italy?”
I answered hesitantly. I’d heard about it before.
I wasn’t a big coffee enthusiast, nor someone passionate enough to research its origins, but I vaguely remembered reading online that Italians dislike watering down their espresso.
So, Italy?
My sister smiled and nodded.
“Correct. Espresso is from Italy. But do you know why this machine was invented?”
“Um…”
I stared at the machine for a moment. If you can brew coffee by hand, why would you need a machine to do it? There could only be one reason.
“To make it more convenient?”
“Yep, that’s right.”
She nodded again.
“To make coffee faster and more conveniently. So people waiting in line for their morning coffee could each get a cup quickly.”
After gazing at the machine for a moment, she turned back to me.
“But in the end, the espresso made with an espresso machine is different from hand-brewed drip coffee. Espresso is generally stronger. Because of the high temperature and pressure used to extract espresso, it requires different beans, a finer grind, and even a different roasting method than drip coffee. So, an idea born from wanting to make coffee faster ended up creating an entirely different kind of coffee.”
Ah, so that’s why she bought a few more tools for making drip coffee.
“Drip coffee is the same,It came about when people wanted a simpler way to filter out the grounds from Turkish-style coffee by using paper filters and funnels.
The French press was developed for a similar reason. Ideas for making coffee easier to drink ended up creating completely new types of coffee.”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“And then there’s cold brew, for instance. Funny enough, among all the coffee we see in cafes, we almost never come across Turkish-style coffee, the original.
But nobody says, ‘This coffee isn’t authentic!’ and dismisses it. So just drink it however you like. After all, they’re all on the café menu anyway.”
“…”
Is that so?
When I tilted my head slightly in thought, my sister smiled again.
“Exactly. Besides, you already know how to appreciate the aroma of coffee. So why not just take your time, enjoy other kinds of coffee first, and think about why people enjoy this bitter, plain kind of coffee?”
After a brief pause to think, I nodded in agreement with her words.
“Yeah, I’ll do that.”
Come to think of it, I wasn’t completely incapable of drinking coffee. Even if I frowned every time, I could still finish a cup of Americano. And if there was something sweet to go with it, it was much easier to drink.
I was even starting to understand why people described the aftertaste of coffee as clean……
Just as my sister said, there’s no need to rush I could take my time and gradually get used to it.
…Actually, it wasn’t just about wanting to like coffee. More than that, I wanted to help ease her workload, even if just a little, while working at the bakery. There was a set time for making coffee, but my sister was the only one here who knew how to brew it properly.
If I could learn how to make it too, her job would get a lot easier.
And if I were going to do it, I didn’t want to half-heartedly mimic what I’d seen. I wanted to know how to make good coffee, and why it was good. I wanted to understand the process so I could do it properly.
With that thought in mind, I took another sip of the coffee in my hand.
I frowned again.
…It seemed like it was going to take some time before I fully understood the appeal of drinking coffee. It was still bitter and sour. Not to the point where I couldn’t drink it, but to be honest, it still wasn’t something I’d willingly pay for with my own money.
“Want some syrup?”
Noticing my expression, my sister burst out laughing and asked.
“…”
Even though I’d just heard her whole explanation earlier, I still couldn’t help but feel embarrassed.
It felt like I was a picky child complaining about side dishes at the dinner table.
Then again, thinking about it, I’d never really been a picky eater. It was more like I was the kid who tried to seem grown-up by eating something overly spicy or fermented, only to regret it and end up squirming in discomfort.
…Either way, it was a little embarrassing.
“…Yeah, I think adding a little syrup would be good.”
My sister laughed again as she looked at me.