Background

Let me be real with you for a sec: I used to not enjoy coffee.  I liked the smell, but I couldn't understand how somebody could drink it, especially black.  Most of the coffee that I'd experienced was bitter and needed some sugar or milk to cut that predominating flavor.  Eventually, my Dad discovered Dunkin' Donuts and their iced mocha coffee (read, it was full of sugar), and we all got addicted.  At that point I knew the coffee world was complicated beyond belief with endless options, but I didn't have much of a desire to tackle the behemoth that is a coffee shop menu.  So for a long time I lived in indifferent ignorance.
A few years later and I was in college, where there was a cappuccino bar, modeled after Italian coffee bars.  Usually I just ordered a small iced mocha, large when things were desperate.  But, by virtue of hanging around the Cap Bar I was exposed to many more coffee options.  Trying to sift through all those options was still a daunting task, so I stuck to the tried and true.  Then, during my semester abroad I was forced out of this coffee comfort zone.  My knowledge of the coffee-verse expanded more and more as a grasp of the lingo became necessary to order at European shops.  This semester piqued my interest in the many kinds of coffee, so my journey continued when I returned to the USA and started taking a peek at the local coffee scene.

Cappuccino and cornetti in Rome

To this day I still order whatever the featured item is on the Starbucks menu, partly out of a desire to try new things but also out of lack of ability to construct an order, to which my general indecisiveness and lack of coffee expertise both contribute.  However, driven by my inability to take the easy way out and back down from a challenge, I am working on enlightening myself both in the ways of coffee brewing and of the various local coffee shops.  Hopefully you and I both learn something along the way!