My top ten Favourite Coffees

1. The first cup of coffee when you get to work in the morning. Before anything gets done, the warm silky caffeine kick that makes you feel somewhat human.

2. The procrastination cup (usually hunts in packs). This cup features alarmingly often during any study session, resulting in the two-fold downfall of time-wasting and lack of concentration due to caffeine high.

3. The morning-after coffee. Takes like warm sticky sludge and always has too much sugar in it. Necessary purely for survival.

4. The I’m-sad-and-tearful-pms cup. This usually tastes mildly salty, whether from licking one’s salty lips or tears dripping into the cup. Mostly only useful for pressing against your tummy and feeling sorry for yourself. Sometimes also synonymous with the you’re-a-bastard-and-are-making-me-cry boyfriend apology cup.

5. The I-gave-up-coffee-for-lent-and-this-is-my-first-cappuccino. Silky caresses of foamy milk and hot strong espresso and mmmmmm……

6. The “skinner” cup. Coffee brewed, served and drunk for the sole purpose of facilitating a gossip session. Can be re-filled several hundred times, depending on the prettiness of the girl and the juiciness of the story.

7. The getting-to-know-you-cup. Coffee drank again for the sole purpose of getting closer to another person with the hopes of a date. Apparently, there are hundreds of rules surrounding how this coffee should be approached (don’t have too high hopes, don’t bring a buddy, go somewhere central yet where very few of your mutual acquaintances hang out), how to solicit it (like you can’t sms the person, it has to be casually suggested after a mutual class), how long it should last etc. If you have been in a relationship for a few years (like I had) and then tried to hit the single work of dating-coffee without a full brief, you would flail and drown like a legless pirate.

8. The Kahlua-coffee (variants include the Irish coffee and the Grappa espresso). The delightful little gem served after dinner, or all on its own, combines two beautiful things in one beautiful cup and warms you from your throat to your toes. Best served on winter nights.

9. The Mountain coffee. Served from a silver flask into a convenient lid-cap on the side of a mountain at below-freezing temperatures at an ungodly hour. Usually brought by the cheerful bugger who promised a lovely walk up the mountain (here I have visions of a leafy lane and lots of waterfalls) and you end up wading through freezing river streams at 400ft. This smidgen mouthful of coffee is the only thing that stops you from killing him.

10. Home coffee. The 6 or 7 cups a day I have when home for a weekend, made by either mom and dad, shared with both mom and dad. The safest, warmest and most delicious cuppa java you will ever drink in your life is the one that you have right in your own home. I’m soppy, so sue me.