I love coffee. Goodness gracious, I love coffee. Life without the stuff is a bleak, howling wilderness, wrought with perils and tribulations and people biting other people’s heads off. However, with coffee, how the world changes. Awkward conversations are made a little less awkward when you have something hot to hold. Mornings are a little less dreadful when there’s a hot, aromatic drink awaiting. Studying is made a little easier when there is caffeine to assist. Long afternoons at work are doable with an iced latte (or three) on your desk.

But even with all my love of coffee, I’m not a coffee snob, and this is why. Have you ever been out to coffee with someone when all they could talk about is whether or not this coffee has the exact level of acidity it should, and whether the foam is too thick or too thin, and if the coffee plants had the exact number of raindrops fall on them that they should have? That is the person I don’t want to be.

I don’t want to be so busy examining the many cups of joe I drink that I forget to just enjoy them. I don’t want to spend my time at all the coffee shops (except that particular one where the beans were raised by Tibetan monks with 3.687 inch beards who daily bathed the plants with rosewater) thinking about how my coffee could be better than it is. I don’t want people to be afraid to make me coffee, thinking that they know how picky I am about it, and that I probably won’t like it.

After all, isn’t that a bit like expecting every meal to consist of caviar and foie gras? Those are all good and well, but sometimes, a person can enjoy rice and beans just as much. This isn’t to say that I don’t appreciate good coffee. I do, and I really don’t much enjoy trying to drink Folgers. But I would rather focus on the comfort of coffee, and the social enjoyment of sharing hot, foamy drinks, and the wonderful kick of mid-afternoon energy that it gives, than on always having the best of the best.

So here’s to love, and to coffee, and to loving coffee, but loving people more.