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Drink coffee you don't like, and drink it black...
I'm now well into week two of my diet and I realized something unexpected: I have largely given up coffee. I the past I would regularly drink 3-4 cups a day, but lately that amount has decreased to 1 cup at most. I would have never expected to accidentally give up coffee, I always thought it would be a sever exercise in willpower if I were to ever decide I needed to give it up. Turns out all I needed was to stop drinking coffee I liked...
Turns out I really don't like dark roasts. I know many people like the bitter, charred flavor that you get with a darker roast but it is not for me. Despite drinking dark roast coffee black on a regular basis since starting my diet, it was only a couple days ago that I discovered what it means to enjoy a cup of black coffee. I was out at a café and ordered their daily special. I had no idea what it was, but daily specials usually interest me and it also happened to be much cheaper than all the frappuccino-latte-type choices that most everyone else was drinking.
I sipped it, expecting the all too familiar bitterness that I dislike in black coffee but it was not to be found. I was nearly stunned at how delicious and fragrant the coffee was. I drank more. I was hooked. It was a bit of a strange experience to find out that the reason I disliked black coffee all along was not because it wasn't sweet, but because it simply didn't suite my taste.
The whole experience was strongly akin to when I first discovered good beer. As a college student I most often drank the cheapest of the cheap beer and happily accepted the fact that it was crap. That's just the way beer was... Until I tried a Belgian beer. It was a sweet, light tripel and it shattered my preconceptions of what beer should taste like. It opened my eyes and opened the door to enjoying many more beers of all flavors down the road. I hope that this experience with a light roast will do the same for coffee.