COFFEE

There are more than a few mass cultural fervors which I have never quite been able to share with my fellow Americans, but there is nothing which I seem to be more out of sync with than our obsession with coffee.

Americans love coffee. They make it a part of their daily routine. Coffee-filled paper cups have become so ubiquitous that they almost assimilate entirely into interior spaces and become invisible, indistinguishable. In the morning hours, every person you meet might as well be accompanied by their all-important liquid companion, in classrooms and workplaces and walking down the street. It's impossible to escape the cult of the coffee bean.

Americans don't just love coffee, they thrive on it, live for it, depend upon it. How often do you hear someone say that they can't wake up without a good cup of coffee? As if, without a cup or two of this drink, they could never possibly tear themselves from the comfort of their beds, assemble themselves into a presentable adult and face the crushing existential torture of modern existence. This elixir invigorates them and breathes life into their otherwise weak and limp bodies. The rich aroma of coffee alone is attributed with restorative effects comparable only to smelling salts.

Really, you only ever hear comment on the taste or enjoyability of coffee from those more invested than the typical morning sipper. Most coffee drinkers seem to treat it as a medical substance, something which matters most for what it can do and not how it tastes.



Entire industries are built upon it. Starbucks has 17,000 coffee shops all over the world, so many that stand-up comedy jokes about the ubiquity of them became cliched long ago. And for those opposed to the corporate coffee juggernauts, there are thousands more coffee shops ready to serve you.

Coffee contains caffeine, which is of course America's most beloved and accepted drug. Everyone knows that it is essentially a drug but nothing could ever make a person truly see it that way. Still, in coffee, we find all the qualities we desire from a drug, with none of the social and physical ills that come with real drugs.

The truth is that no one needs coffee - personally, despite my own unhealthy habits, I can at least say that I can't stand to drink anything caffeinated in the early morning, only water or maybe orange juice - but we pretend that we do. People tell you that they need coffee, that they cannot function without it. They want desperately to itch for it, to feel withdrawal when they go without it, to let it take control of their life. Essentially, to indulge in a socially acceptable form of drug addiction.

Americans love to become addicts, but particularly when they can mask that addiction. Our country is built on a kind of delusional dependence on hope and ambition, on the kind of motivational energy that coffee gives us. Coffee is the quintessential American drug.