College studies and coffee consumption seem to go hand-in-hand. Driving through the North Central College campus, it would be difficult able to keep track of the number of students holding a “cup of joe,” no matter how hard one could try.
I appear to be in the minority, being a 20-something and never coming near the coffee-drinking habit. I find coffee utterly disgusting. The aftertaste from coffee is something I would not wish on my worst enemy. It almost repulses me as much as mayonnaise, though my disgust for mayo is a story for another day.
With midterms nearing, I picked the brains of some of North Central’s frequent coffee drinkers. Steve Henson, a senior at North Central College, is employed by Starbucks. Henson says he drinks coffee around three to five times a week, typically to energize himself. Henson added that his access to so many different types of coffee drinks from working at Starbucks has increased his coffee cravings due to intrigue.
People often tell me if I added more cream, sugar or other types of additives I might actually like coffee. But if you need additives to like something, you might as well not drink it. Crack open a Red Bull if you so desperately need caffeine. Also, the stronger the coffee, the more effectively it caffeinates people.
I have always looked at coffee like alcohol in the sense that no one really likes the taste of alcohol, they like the effect it has on them – the obvious flaw in my analogy is no matter how many additives you put in alcohol, it will have the same effect on you as it would without additives. But, hey, maybe people actually like the taste of coffee.
Samantha Atteberry, a junior at North Central College and lover of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, enjoys “a large blueberry coffee with extra blueberry, extra cream and sugar,” which to her tastes like a “warm blueberry muffin.”
Atteberry sees coffee-drinking as a habit, but doesn’t call it a bad habit, “because there are worse things.” She did acknowledge some of the negatives that come with a coffee-drinking habit: “there can be withdrawals that can cause headaches and irritability.”
I knew there were different kinds of coffee beans, but I didn’t know the different kinds of beans could have drastically different flavors. Henson explained that it is hard to tell the difference between “black coffees” – which I now know to be the standard bean.
Henson mentioned that Starbucks has some pretty good “reserve options” and went on to praise a North Central College organization. “NCC’s Best also packages and sells a very good Guatemalan coffee,” Henson said.
Talking to Steve Henson was the first time I heard of NCC’s Best, an organization on campus that promotes socially conscious business. A part of their socially conscious business initiative is to “only sell high quality coffee bought at above fair trade prices to emphatically ensure the livelihoods of our partners in Guatemala,” Henson explained. NCC’s Best works with farmers from San Lucas, Guatemala, buying and selling products from San Lucas farmers to “help economically stabilize the village.”
I asked Steve Henson if he thinks coffee is important for college students. He said, “it can definitely be helpful to give you a caffeine boost when you really need it.”
Personally, if I need a boost I will drink a Dr. Pepper for the sugar. It saves money and tastes much better. One reason why I may see so many North Central students walking around with cups of coffee in their hands is because of how accessible coffee is on campus; Henson praised the accessibility, saying, “The Boilerhouse on campus makes it easy for students to choose their favorite drink option while keeping them nearby other campus buildings and residence halls, so they don’t have to travel very far to stay awake writing a paper.”
