My Coffee Conversion

Up until 2009 I was pretty sure that I would never be a coffee drinker.  All my experiences up to that point had left me wondering why people were so enamored with a drink that was thin, unpleasantly bitter, tasted like blackened toast and for many required cream and sugar to make it palatable.  Then one day that all changed.  I was helping a friend do some construction on a space he hoped to turn into a coffee shop.  A couple of times he offered me a coffee and I declined because I thought I didn't like coffee.  While taking a break, one of the investors convinced me to try the iced coffee because it was one of her favorites.  At the first sip I knew my life and my self-conception as a non-coffee drinker would be forever changed.  The iced coffee was refreshing, bright, flavorful completely lacking in bitterness and slightly sweet even though it had no added sugar.  When I asked my friend why it was so good he told me it was from two primary reasons. First, he use a lightly roasted coffee from Ritual Roasters in San Francisco, which allowed the bright fruity flavors of the coffee to shine through.  Second, he used a cold brewing method that extracted the flavors from the beans without the bitterness.  Since then I have become a huge fan of people refer to as third wave, or specialty coffee.