When I tell people that I go to bed thinking about the cup of Cafe Blue Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee I’ll have the next morning, they usually look at me like I’ve said something strange. But it’s true. Some people journal before bed. I think about coffee.

What makes this funny is that I didn’t grow up drinking coffee at all. In our house, coffee was treated like a villain. “It’s going to give you palpitations,” was the warning I remember clearly. So tea or Milo it was. And now that I’m older, I can’t help wondering… Milo has caffeine too, so what exactly were we avoiding?

Even when I went off to hotel school and was surrounded by coffee at events, there was still no desire for coffee. My first hotel job over 30 years ago didn’t move the needle either. There was strong brewed coffee at every meeting and workshop. The first time I tried it, I genuinely felt like my head might lift off. Maybe the parents were onto something after all.

For reasons I can’t remember, I eventually tried instant coffee. I liked it, so that became my morning drink. I thought that was it — I was now “a coffee drinker.”

I was introduced to the Cafe Blue chain in 2008 when I started doing training for the opening of their second cafe. During one of the sessions, a Supervisor offered me coffee and I casually asked if they had instant coffee (with a serious face). Let’s just say that question was… not well received. I was politely informed that instant coffee is not real coffee. I tasted a little of the brewed coffee. Same result: head launching like a rocket.

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