Growing up, my Irish father and Vietnamese mother seldom agreed on anything. Countless arguments were a constant presence in my household, some more heated than others. Despite the high tensions in the household, there was always one item that brought my parents together:

Coffee.

The first memories of being in the kitchen with my parents involved a cup of coffee. Back in the 80’s and 90’s, most people drank Folgers coffee (a real treat back then) from a Mr. Coffee drip machine. My parents always had a hand-me-down coffee mug of some kind, never matching of course, and they never failed to drink their coffee black. No matter how ugly the fight the night before, the two of them would somehow find a way to sit down and have coffee together the next morning.

Like most children, I always wondered about the taste of this magical drink that grown-ups seemed to adore. “There’s nothing like a cup of coffee in the morning,” my dad used to say with a jovial laugh, right before he left home to do his morning radio show. He would continue to have two, maybe even three cups later once he got to his office.

One day when I was around 8 or 9 I found the courage to give coffee a try. My dad side-eyed me, giving me the indirect warning that most parents give unsuspecting children when it comes to the black brew.

“You sure?”

I nodded, grabbed, his cup, took a sip…

….and nearly choked as I frantically ran to the sink to spit out the poison.

I heard my dad laughing in the background, as I’m sure all parents do when they actually let their innocent children try out coffee. After tasting what could only be black tar from a melted highway, I was struck that anyone could finish a cup of the black goop, much less drink multiple cups per day.

The first taste of coffee instilled the fear of the beverage deep into my psyche. I didn’t try coffee again until I was 17 years old, when I actually wanted it more for its magical properties (aka, helping me stay awake the morning after studying all night). Unlike the first time, however, I had discovered a coffee variant that would work for my teenage taste buds, while also satiating the need for an energy hit.

Heavily flavored and sugary coffee from the gas station.

I probably drank enough flavored vanilla-irish-cream-caramel coffee to kill a diabetic in one day, but the teenage body is a mysterious temple that can devour even the worst of poisons. Sometimes I would pick up a cup of sugary goodness at the gas station and bring it home to drink alongside my dad, who always had his black coffee in hand. I felt like I had finally joined the realm of adulthood: I was drinking coffee.

Kind of.

When I was 17 we went to France to attend a cousin’s wedding — and in this foreign country, I was thrown into the trenches. France didn’t tolerate sugary coffee. In fact, even the gas stations in France had fancy espresso machines that served only the best in roasted beans. When both my father and I were served what looked to an American like a thimble of coffee with a matching saucer, we were both horrified. My manners somehow enabled me to shoot down this bitter brew (much like I would do a few years later with cheap vodka at a college party), while my poor father struggled with the opposite.

“Why’s it so small? Can we go to McDonalds?”

The McSuperSizeMe coffee mugs of the U.S. looked like giant, towering monsters compared to the hobbit-like espresso cups of Europe. My dad was crushed to learn that, like most things in Europe, the coffee was much smaller than its American cousin. He struggled throughout the trip to get his coffee fix, as we were dumb Americans who could barely utter the word bonjour, much less advise them on how to brew a cup of coffee

A few years later, sugary coffee became a necessity for finishing college and waking up for class. The fast-life, grab-and-go coffee was my go-to in school for surviving semesters (and hangovers). If I felt fancy, I would splurge on a vanilla latte or frappuccino at Starbucks which, back then, was a real treat. Eventually, I moved on from the sugary lattes and graduated to Starbucks black coffee, the only thing (and still the only thing) that can actually keep me awake through the night and even give me the real jitters. I swear, there must be riddadin in Starbucks black drip coffee.

Now that I was drinking black coffee and waking up at a half-decent hour, I often joined my parents for breakfast where we all shared a pot of the same brew. It was in these moments I truly felt like a real adult. Whether we were at Dennys, iHop, or even a Cracker Barrel, we would all hungrily take seconds or thirds from the server who always came around with a steaming hot pot of coffee, ready to refill.

When I moved to Japan I had many culture shocks, but even today, I still remain forever changed by the coffee culture of Japan. Japan, similar to France, always served coffee on fine plate ware with matching saucer, a tiny spoon, and a small helping of sugar with a separate mini carafe for milk or cream. Unlike France, however, the coffee was not espresso and was instead the “allonge,” aka, drip coffee, that I was so used to in the United States.

In Japan, people serve coffee at first meetings. At lunch gatherings. For a social event. The act of serving and drinking coffee was an event in itself. The pouring of the coffee. The design of the saucer and cup. Often times, they would even do coffee pour-over french-press style right in front of you before serving your cup (and this was way, way before pour-over was a thing in the west). At first, in these situations, I had to exercise the restraint of my American impatience, who wanted to pour the cup of coffee in a to-go cup and move onto the next busy item in my schedule.

Coffee in Japan was not fast. It was a slow and social process. A way for the locals to host guests. To show respect. To get to know you.

It taught me patience.

Soon, going to a boutique coffee shop for a coffee meeting with a girlfriend became a normal outing. Not only would we sit in a cozy coffee shop with matching cup and saucer discussing our lives over liquid black beans, we would do it for hours. In Japan, I discovered the British equivalent to tea time, and it taught me something important:

It’s ok to slow down.

Every time I returned to the U.S., I tried to recreate the experience with my American friends and I failed terribly. I tried to take friends to a local coffee shop, or even Starbucks, but within 15 minutes of sitting down I could see their feet inadvertently tap the floor as they looked around the room impatiently until the inevitable question came: “so, what are we doing after this?” Coffee and conversation was not the main event, it was the in-between. Just when I thought perhaps I was doomed to drink to-go coffee forever in the U.S., I found my perfect coffee shop mate:

My dad.

My dad’s eyes would light up whenever I asked him if he wanted to go to Starbucks. It was our tradition for me to buy a newspaper for him (we switched it up from New York Times and Wall Street Journal), where we took turns reading different sections of the paper and discussed various current events. As a full-fledged working adult I always tried to buy his coffee. While he indulged me by trying a latte or a macchiatto here and there, he was still a steadfast black drip-coffee man.

Going to Starbucks with my dad was one of the most special treasures of my life. A memory that neither of us would have without the connection of coffee. For over ten years, whenever I came home to visit, we would often spend 1 to 2 hours in Starbucks conversing, reading the newspapers, or talking about life. From gagging at my first sip of coffee, to chugging down sugary substitutes, to finally graduating into an adult coffee drinker, I felt my life had come full circle as I shared cup after cup with my dad.

Coffee didn’t just bring us together in the mornings. It brought us closer as a father and daughter; it created an open space for me to share my hopes and dreams; and for him, to reminisce on his past. It’s something special that was sparked by a small but bitter drink that has, quite frankly, changed my life.

Epilogue:

As someone who has lived in the Pacific Northwest for 6+ years, I can safely say that drinking coffee here is a necessity. The constant gloom and lack of sunshine does weird things to your mental well-being, and somehow, caffeine aligns all the screwed up sun-deprived neurons in your brain to align for a few, short hours. All the sorry sods like me who are hopelessly addicted to caffeine just to survive here have created a thriving and truly delicious coffee industry in the PNW. The coffee in Seattle and Portland is superb. I used to drink whatever crap Starbucks threw at me, but now, I am a true PNW coffee snob.

I know if my dad were still alive today, he would indulge me by trying out PNW coffee, but then follow it up by saying I’m out of my mind for paying $7 for a cup of coffee and tell me Folgers was just as good. And I would laugh, because he wouldn’t be all wrong.

This is for you, dad, on your third year anniversary of being away.

This post is me just trying to write again. Whatever it may be. Whatever is in my brain! Here is to, hopefully, more writing in the future.