Steeped In Tea, Stirred By Coffee.

As a kid, I was not on the same page with my family when it came to food. I was a little bit of a picky eater who also had some silly rules that made me go to bed without food on many nights. One of my habits was not repeating a particular food twice in a day, and it pisses my mom off a lot. I can't remember how it started, but knowing that we would repeat food always killed my appetite. Sometimes, mom pleases me by providing options, and there are times when she just acts as if I don't exist when we are repeating a particular food.

For beverages, my family enjoyed tea a lot back then. Once mom filled the tea jug with hot water, she dropped some tea bags inside and covered it for some minutes; Lipton or Top Tea were her favorites then.

She serves the tea hot with sugar and milk because she enjoys hot tea, but that wasn't the case for me. I didn't like hot tea, but whether drinking it was hot or cold wasn't my decision to make since we (her children) must do things her way.

Most days, I didn't have a choice but to drink my tea hot, and on my lucky days, I got the chance to keep my tea and wait till it cooled completely. Mom always said tea is best taken hot because she believes those teabags are somehow medicinal and will only be effective when tea is taken hot.

We were fond of just tea as a family and never once had coffee. Coffee was expensive compared to regular tea, and no one around me ever gave a good compliment about it. My mom once said it dries people's blood, and the only thing I have heard outsiders say about coffee is that it doesn't make them sleep.

In my big head, I always wondered why people would spend money on a beverage with zero value, because it made absolutely no sense to me.

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Coffee wasn't the choice for many families in Nigeria back then, so nothing inspired me to try it until my friend told me that his dad drinks coffee for energy. I became confused thinking about how a drink that deprives someone of sleep gives energy because nothing drains me faster than not sleeping as I should.

The urge to try coffee eventually came up when I was writing my promotion exams for senior school. There was a midnight gospel concert my family always attended, but that year I couldn't.

I wasn't sure about attending initially because I had papers in the morning, and for the sake of keeping myself energized, I took my friends advice to drink coffee. I got it with the hope of drinking it after the concert, but mom didn't allow me, so I was alone at home. I couldn't sleep since the thought of the concert wouldn't leave my head, and out of boredom, I drank the coffee.

I didn't like the strong taste, but I won't deny how good it made me feel. I was up almost throughout the night and still felt good going for the exam in the morning. I tried coffee a few more times, even though there was no need for it, and that was all.

Did I mention that I drank it secretly? Of course, I did because my mom wouldn't have taken it lightly with me if she knew.

Immediately after secondary school, I didn't hide my coffee drink anymore, even though mom still complained, and as I grew older, I succeeded in making coffee an option for the family instead of just tea.

Surprisingly, I enjoy drinking hot coffee and still can't tell exactly why I still choose cold tea most times when I have to drink tea. I guess the aroma of coffee powder when it meets hot water is one of the reasons, and it's fair to say that coffee became my favorite after many years.

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