I may have had a sip or taste of coffee as a child, but I don’t remember it. Coffee was an adult beverage and not offered to children in our home. Neither of my parents drank alcohol, so coffee was the only beverage in our house that was restricted. My first conscious memory of drinking coffee was one fall when my father and I were hunting. We had packed sandwiches for our lunch, and he brought his thermos of coffee. I often had a canteen of water, but didn’t have it that day. The lunchbox that we used had space for two thermoses. One was full, the other empty. Dad took the cups from both thermoses and poured coffee into them as we ate our sandwiches. He offered one to me and I drank. I didn’t particularly like the flavor, but I enjoyed being treated like an adult.

After that experience, I would occasionally have a cup of coffee when sharing a coffee break with other employees when working in my father’s shop. However, I still didn’t consider myself a coffee drinker and often preferred other beverages.

Going to college was an opportunity to change my lifestyle in several ways. Before attending college, I had read myself to sleep for years. I kept books by my bed, and I would read for a while when I crawled into bed. I often woke up later with my glasses on and my face in a book. In college, I found myself getting sleepy when trying to read material for classes. I had to give up the practice of reading in bed. I would go to the library or sit at my desk to read assignments for class. I also started drinking coffee. The boost from the caffeine helped me focus on my studies. Before long, I acquired a percolator for my dorm room and was making coffee, roughly imitating how my mother made coffee at home, a relatively weak beverage.

After seminary we moved to a small town in North Dakota. Folks from the community gathered in the local city cafe for coffee each morning, and I began to join them. It was a good place to get a feel for the community and keep up with what was on the minds of the people I served. When we made pastoral calls, people didn’t ask whether or not we wanted coffee. They just served us. My wife, who had not previously drunk coffee, started to accept the beverage and began drinking it at home. During those years, I became a bit more interested in coffee. I purchased a grinder and bought specialty coffees from a shop when I traveled to the city. I started to make my coffee a lot stronger than what was served in homes and cafes where we lived.

Specialty coffee shops were beginning to appear in cities. The first Starbucks opened in Pike Place in Seattle when I was a college student, but I knew little of coffee culture. When we moved to Idaho, we moved to a larger city (Boise), and our conference office was located in Portland, Oregon, and we began to visit that city fairly regularly. Starbucks shops started to appear in more and more places across the Northwest. Despite the high prices, I occasionally indulged in coffee from them and other vendors that began opening shops. I had a friend who was an artist who received a commission to paint murals in Starbucks shops, and I made it a point to visit shops that featured his artwork.

While living in Boise, I acquired an espresso machine and learned to craft coffee beverages at home. I bought beans from coffee shops and developed preferences for various blends and roasts. Susan and I created a practice of going out for coffee and conversation on Mondays, which were our day off from work.

When we moved to Rapid City, our choices of where to go for coffee were limited. I began to tell my friends that the best cup of espresso in town was in my kitchen. The trend of specialty coffee shops with high prices continued to grow, and soon, there were several such shops in Rapid City. Over the 25 years we lived there, coffee shops and kiosks were springing up at a rapid pace.

A couple of years before we moved from Rapid City, I was diagnosed with irregular heartbeats. My doctor noticed extra beats and ordered a few tests. Since caffeine can contribute to such a condition, I decided to stop drinking coffee. Initially, I continued to make espresso drinks with decaffeinated coffee. Over time, I explored various tea beverages, including decaffeinated chai. I started to bend my own spices for chai. After I stopped drinking coffee, Susan had her own experience with irregular heart rhythm and also stopped consuming caffeine. We still have an espresso machine in our kitchen and I made beverages for family and friends and steamed milk for tea lattes for myself.

I am not as strict about avoiding caffeine as I used to be. An ablation procedure has addressed my heart rhythm, and I will occasionally have a cup of coffee. I still enjoy the aroma and taste, and I still pay attention to coffee shops.

When we moved to Birch Bay, our village had no coffee shops. The nearest one was four miles away, in a plaza next to the Interstate highway. Living near our son’s home, we began going out for coffee with him occasionally, so I discovered several coffee shops in the area.

Now, almost five years after moving into this house, there are three coffee shops in Birch Bay. The latest ribbon-cutting ceremony was yesterday and is within easy walking distance of our house. The farthest is a ten-minute bike ride from home. I don’t frequent coffee shops enough to make a difference to their business, but I am curious about how many coffee shops our village needs. I expect all three to do well this summer, but I don’t think there is enough business in the winter to support all three.

I have visions of coffee shops proliferating until every other storefront on every mainstream is a coffee shop. With the price of specialty coffees topping $7 per cup in shops while the cost of making the same beverage at home is pennies, I wonder how there can be enough customers to support the shops we have.

Meanwhile, I’ve been paying attention to how much counter space the espresso machine consumes in our kitchen, and wondering how much longer before we realize we don’t need it anymore.