69 comments

  1. Lori S. on #

    Me! Nasty stuff.

    Oddly for the U.S., I have a three-adult household, and none of us drink coffee regularly. (Not all of us hate it, though.)

  2. Tehani Wessely on #

    ME! I hate it with a passion. I don’t even like the smell, so while I love doing the coffee shop thing with my friends, I spend half the time trying not to gag. If I taste something even remotely coffee flavoured I want to be sick! Hate hate hate.

  3. Sarah T. on #

    Me! Can’t stand the stuff.

    Oddly, though, I like coffee ice cream.

  4. Beth on #

    I can hardly stand the smell much less drink it!

  5. cherie priest on #

    I am not its biggest fan. Perhaps that’s not a declaration of outright hate, but my apathy should count for more because my husband spent years roasting coffee for a living … and has recently gotten back into it again.

    In short, I live with the King Chief Coffee Asshole.
    But I am “meh” on the subject of that brew.

  6. cofax on #

    I find it bitter and it gives me stomach-aches. Sometimes I can have it as a latte or mocha, much-adulterated, just for the caffeine hit. I like kahlua, though.

  7. El on #

    I can’t help but think that black puddle water would be far better-tasting…

  8. chris. on #

    Oh, UGH. I *hate* coffee. And i live in Seattle! It’s amazing they still let me live here, so, shhh, don’t tell anyone, ‘kay? S’just between us.

  9. Alex on #

    I grew up with my mother drinking the stuff every morning, but cannot stand the smell, let alone the taste. I can’t even do mocha, despite a love of chocolate! I can just about come up Kahlua… but only with a good dose of milk to help…

    Urgh. Coffee. My husband only drinks the stuff when he’s away from me, because I won’t go anywhere near him with coffee-breath!

  10. trudi on #

    I hatesses coffee! I hatesses the smell! I hatesses the taste!

    I think I learned to hate it because my ex liked ridiculously strong short blacks, and it gave him disgusting bad breath. I still remember that smell. Oddly close to the smell of poo. And then he’d want to kiss me…

    Hmm, I think that memory needs some fresh repressing.

  11. the dragonfly on #

    Don’t like coffee. Ick. Only likes it when it is mixed with milk and ice and caramel syrup and white chocolate syrup, all blendy, with whipped cream on top. But…then it doesn’t taste like coffee. šŸ™‚

  12. suzi on #

    it is a foul, foul liquid. if you really need to wake up, well, they invented red cordial for a reason. mmmmcordial….
    anyway, i have managed to stop my husband from keeping any coffee in the house but he insists on having iced coffee everyday and i ask, what’s the point? it tastes like coffee but is only a tiny percent coffee, so there is absolutely no benefit to it. it’s like drinking mid-strength beer to get drunk; tastes like crap and you need to drink a hell of a lot of it for it to have any noticeable effect…

    anyway, yes, coffee is evil.

  13. R.J. Anderson on #

    I loathe the stuff. A friend tried to convince me that I just hadn’t had it “made right”, and did all sorts of wizardly things with her coffee grinder and some amaretto flavoring and cream and sugar, and then she handed it to me proudly and when I optimistically sipped it, it still tasted like someone had emptied an ashtray into my cup.

    Never again.

  14. lili on #

    coffee is fail. makes my feet cramp.

  15. Chris McLaren on #

    I’ll go you one further and declare my antipathy for all hot beverages.

    A fie upon them, I say.

  16. Merrie Haskell on #

    Coffee is gross. Though sometimes I like to add a little of it to cream and sugar and see what happens. Sarah T. is right on about coffee ice-cream, though.

    I put coffee squarely in the category of “things that seemed much cooler when you were little and couldn’t have them and could only guess what they tasted like.” My first experience of coffee was that it was horrifyingly bitter and disappointingly thin. I expected it to be like hot chocolate, only better, after all the hype.

    Likewise, wine. How can something that look like liquid fruit roll-ups make the back of your tongue curl up in fright like that???

    I’m not big on acquired tastes. I already have plenty of tastes that came with my body, free of effort.

  17. Andrew on #

    Justine, you are breaking my heart.

    Fie.

  18. Patrick on #

    It seems to me that coffee and tea and other hot beverages came from a time when boiling the water was necessary and I suspect it also masked the taste of the foul water.

  19. Chris Lawson on #

    I too despise the taste of coffee. Back when I was an undergrad I tried it several times as a stimulant to help me study at night but I soon decided coffee was too disgusting to be worth a few measly percentage points.

  20. emily beth on #

    I despise coffee!!!! Ew ew ew ew ew ew ew. That’s actually a good thing though, as I am a hyper person naturally and i don’t need added stimulants. But coffee is just really, really, really, horribly bitter, and as, the amazing John Green said in An Abundance of Katherines, “‘. . . tasted like caffeinated stomach bile.'”

  21. Carrie on #

    I love the smell of coffee. And every now and again I think “this smells good, thus it should taste good!” and I am always bitterly bitterly disappointed. So I hate coffee not only for the taste but also for not following through on its smell!

  22. Kelly McCullough on #

    How about love that turned to hate. I used to love it and I still love the smell, but somewhere along the line it decided that it wanted to kill me, and now if I drink it, it converts my insides to a vile place where dark things lurk waiting to suck the souls from unwary travelers, to say nothing of the horrors it visits on my digestive system. It is evil unspeakable stuff that fouls the waters of life by its very existence.

  23. John Scalzi on #

    I never drink the stuff. It tastes of ass.

  24. Celia on #

    Like Carrie, I adore the smell of coffee–I love the part of the store where they have the grind your own beans and it smells so wonderfully wonderfully good. However, I can’t drink it. I don’t even think I’ve tried in many years now, since I’m pretty sure that the only way I’d be able to drink it would be by putting in so much milk and sugar I’d be better off just having tea and saving the milk for something else. I do like Kaluha, though. MMmmmm.

  25. Amber on #

    No coffee. No car.

    Tea and pushbikes is where it’s at.

  26. Jude on #

    I estimate that I’ve had 5 cups in my life, including those consumed in Mexico, so I’m not sure that I’ve ever given it a fair trial. As a vegetarian, I know that I come from a long line of meat-eaters; as a non-coffee drinker, I also come from a long line of coffee drinkers. I’m not certain why it passed me by.

  27. sherwood on #

    Smell: heaven. Taste: only in ice cream.

    Otherwise: pigwash!

  28. Gabrielle on #

    Eh. Hate coffee. I tell myself it’s because I’m a foolish youngster. And it’s not that my family doesn’t drink coffee! They do, everyday.

  29. Michelle on #

    I hate hate HATE The taste of coffe, but I love love LOVE the smell of it. My mom drinks tea and dad doesn’t drink either one, so I grew up without it. My aunt liked coffee in the morning, though, and I liked it when she would stay with us and I woke up to the smell. But ew, I could never drink it.

  30. Melissa on #

    Yes, it’s disgusting. I hate coffee. Ugh, and all of those ice creams and foods with coffee in them. NOT GOOD.

  31. Lindsay N on #

    I love walking down the coffee aisle at the grocery store. The smell is quite nice.

    Drinking it though- BLEH!

  32. Meg on #

    I do not like coffee. My girlfriend has been attempting to get me to drink mochas, to no avail. What is most agonizing about this is that I currently hail from a college town (Ann Arbor, MI, where I incidentally do not drive) and there are coffee shops everywhere along with next-morning paper deadlines in abundance. I’ve had many a meeting in coffee shops only to order a delicious hot chocolate, cheaper and better tasting.

    But seriously, how can people drink that stuff? If you’re going to put chocolate in it to make it taste better, why not eliminate the foul substance and make the whole thing chocolate?

    Coffee’s only saving grace is its smell. I do love the smell of coffee.

  33. Justine on #

    Yay for all us coffee haters! Another oppressed minority speaks up! (Though I will never understand liking the smell. Eww.)

    And I must say I’ve been really enjoying deleting all the coffee lover comments. Mwaahahaha.

  34. Owldaughter on #

    Me! I have to drown it in cream and sugar to make it even palatable, and even then I only drink a couple of sips. Although I can and will drink the not-really-coffee-but-sweet-somewhat-coffee-flavoured-syrup-based iced cappuccinos our omnipresent Canadian coffee shop chain makes, which are mostly crushed ice and milk anyhow. Real coffee makes me sick to my stomach. (Literally, not figuratively.)

    Tea is where it’s at, real tea made from loose leaves. Teabagged stuff acceptable only in emergencies or by virtue of necessity.

  35. Astres on #

    Coffee is nasty. I can drink mochas but I love tea. I mostly prefer matcha (traditional ceremonial green tea).

  36. Dave H. on #

    Coffee is some kind of evil trick. It isn’t really meant to be ingested.

  37. Kelly G. on #

    Ah, coffee. I love the smell of it, but unless it’s just a tiny amount inside a mass of cream and sugar and frothy flavored things, it’s absolutely vile (and this comes from another Seattle-ite!)

    When I do the coffeehouse thing (because there’s one on every corner here!) I just get tea. Less or no caffeine, and no vile taste that makes my tongue shrivel up in disgust.

  38. Stephanie on #

    HATE coffee. It’s disgusting. What I hate more is that coffee shops don’t see a need to offer more (or just better) non-coffee menu options. Hey, coffee shop people! My writing group drags me here on a weekly basis! At least make a pitcher of lemonade or something. (I’m with Chris above on the hot drinks in general. Then again, I live in the perpetual oven that is Texas.)

    My husband’s study partner got him hooked on Starbuck’s last semester. That woman owes me big time.

  39. Liset on #

    I hated coffee for almost ALL of my life. But then in college my friends were always going out to cafes and they MADE me drink a mocha something or other. I could have died! But then I started craving it! COFFEE IS A DRUG, A DRUG I SAY! Sadly now I drink it from time to time… -_- But I cover it with like three tablespoons of hot chocolate mix and milk, so I’m not sure if it’s really coffee when I actually drink it….

    Worse thing about coffee: If you leave it in your thermos, and forget to wash it out, it stinks like NO other! Dear Lord, it’s like a barfy smell! I’ve had to throw away many dear thermoses because of it. So sad!

  40. Kate on #

    coffee is a taste that I would have to acquire. I think I could if I worked at it, as I love coffee icecream and I enjoy the smell. but I have chronic headaches and caffeine makes them worse, so I stay away. I actually don’t mind the taste of single mochas, but as I drink one I can feel my head pain ratcheting up. I worked in a cafe for a time that always had 10 – 13 different kinds of coffee going, so it’s a good thing I’m fine with the smell. ^_^

  41. elodie on #

    Coffee’s gross! I even hate mocha stuff–spoiling my perfect chocolate cakes with coffee taste, ew ew ew. Plus coffee is such a liar, because it smells GOOD like mmm I love the smell of coffee…but it tastes soooo baaaad :/ Wtf. (although I must admit sometimes I wish I liked it just for the awakening effect it apparently has!)

  42. Liset on #

    “Iā€™m not big on acquired tastes. I already have plenty of tastes that came with my body, free of effort.”
    HAHAHAHAH! This made me laugh like a LOON! And is why I didn’t go to culinary school, even though I’m quite a good cook!

  43. capt. cockatiel on #

    Tea all the way!
    Coffee plagues Seattle, though. There is so escape from its evils…

  44. cathy on #

    Coffee is one of those nasty tricks played on us by nature. It smells great but tastes awful. Coffee candy is acceptable in a pinch, but that’s about it. Coffee stays bitter even when you dump 4 teaspoons of sugar in and it causes stomach upset.

    The only form in which it is even a little acceptable is when it’s 4pm in Italy and you decide to have an expresso and a biscotti. And even then seltzer water with flavored syrup would be a better choice of drink.

  45. Leeland on #

    Ick. I hate coffee too. No mater how much sugar and cream you add, that stuff is always too bitter! I prefer hot cocoa. =)

  46. little willow on #

    I don’t drink coffee or drink or eat anything that involves or remotely tastes like coffee.

    The smell of coffee brewing has always made me ill. Truly. I can’t go into a coffee shop for a long period of time, and when I walk down the coffee and cereal aisle of the grocery store to get to the granola and oatmeal, I hold my breath.

  47. Dess on #

    i’ve only had one coffee drink i liked. it was some sort of pumpkin/spiced/autumn theme flavored thing so it tasted nothing like coffee. but other than that, it makes me cringe.

  48. Lizabelle on #

    I hate the smell and taste of coffee. Coffee haters unite! *raises fist*

    Bizarrely, I do occasionally enjoy coffee with sambucca after a meal, but I think that’s just my brain persuading me to sneak in some more alcohol.

  49. Jessica on #

    Coffee is disgusting! XD

  50. niki on #

    It smells really bad….

  51. hillary! on #

    I get migraines from the smell of coffee. Why would I drink it?
    Actually, I’m allergic to it.

  52. tracie zimmer on #

    Overrated sludge, I say.

  53. steve buchheit on #

    Like some of the other commentators, the smell of good coffee can be like ambrosia, and it lures you in to test a cup. Surely, it can’t be as bad as you remember it. No, smell, isn’t this fabulous, is this just delicious. Take a sip, anything that smells so wonderful mustn’t taste bad.

    ::sip::

    For the Love of All That Is Holy, what is this dreck! OMG, I’ll never get this, uh, taste? Is that what this sensation is. This need to pull my tongue out with pliers? What on earth ever possessed me to try this swill? I think I need to go eat grass to get this out of my mouth.

  54. katsie on #

    Terrible nasty black gunk.

    I much prefer tea as my hot beverage of choice (my cold beverage of choice as well). I have suffered many attempts at conversion, yet remain unimpressed.

  55. Mary Elizabeth S. on #

    Ick. Bitter, sour, and leaves a bad aftertaste. Tea for me, please, or soda if I need some caffeine.

    ~Mary

  56. Justine on #

    Ha hah. I just deleted my own father’s pro coffee comment. Is it bad that I enjoyed doing it? Mwahahahaha!

    This comment thread has had the most deleted comments ever. Double mwahahahaha!

  57. Meg on #

    I’m pretty sure I’m the only person in the Seattle area who does not drink coffee.

    I once had a friend who insisted I taste her mocha because, and I quote, “You won’t even taste the coffee.” I tasted, made a face, and told her that I don’t like burnt toast in my hot chocolate.

  58. janet on #

    Coffee-haters: I wonder how many of you are supertasters. (Google it.)

  59. Sali on #

    I have never understood why so many coffee drinkers feel this bizarre urge to try to convert non-drinkers. And why is the excuse of not wanting to drink too much caffeine considered more acceptable than not liking the taste? (I should admit to liking coffee, please don’t hurt me. However I have never tried to push coffee on non-drinkers and I drink hot chocolate in cafes because it’s nicer.)

  60. Sarah Rees Brennan on #

    Hate it, and people keep trying to make me drink it, in some kind of weird coffee conspiracy. (Perhaps they introduce the parasitic aliens to your system through it.)

    I will confess to loving the smell.

  61. Jenn on #

    Yep, hate the coffee. But like some of the others, love the smell. I have tried multiple times to love the taste (or even tolerate it), but it is not to be.

    Us coffee-haters are pretty oppressed, though. When you say you don’t drink coffee, people give you this look–like you are a child or completely insane. Something must be wrong with you.

  62. Hanna on #

    Coffee smells good but tastes bad.

    People tell me I have to add cream or something but I’m lactose intolerant, so that’s a no-no. Also, if I add sugar it makes me pee like a racehorse. (TMI) It will always taste icky.

  63. Renleigh on #

    I’m a usual lurker, but this does seem like an excellent post for bonding.

    I definitely agree with everyone’s who noted that coffee smells wonderful but tastes terrible, making it an extra evil substance. Don’t they know I depend on smell to figure out what to consume, and that kind of deception is just cruel? And the worst thing about coffee is definitely the perception that grown-up adult types drink it. I just finished my first year of college, and I was asked approximately 400 times if/when I was going to start drinking coffee. I tried to consume it in fancy chocolatey drinks, but all I could think was this is good…except for this coffee part.

    I’ve just switched over from soda to tea for my caffeine source, and while I’m good at finding iced teas I like, I still haven’t tried any hot tea except generic lipton. Any recommendations from the tea drinkers?

  64. caitlin on #

    I’m a tea gal, but I really like coffee icecream and coffee yogurt.

  65. Leahr on #

    I always hated coffee. Now I can tolerate it when necessary if the taste is drowned by sugar and milk.
    My father is allergic to it.
    Caffeine makes my brain feel all nasty and buzzy unless it was a Snapple. Otherwise I agree with the posters whose comments were not deleted. Except I hate coffee ice cream too. And I don’t really care for coffee smell either.

  66. Ann on #

    Green tea is yummy. I especially like the bottled stuff, but for hot tea… *checks kitchen* Nope, we’re out. I dunno what the brand is. Herbal teas are good, too. They sometimes don’t have caffiene, though. You have to check.

  67. Amy on #

    Coffee is only good if you can get it to taste like coffee ice cream: loaded with cream and sugar!

    Liset: use bleach to clean out the thermos instead of throwing away the thermos. It gets rid of tea stains on metal and ceramic containers, too. Just clean it out with really hot water afterwards to get rid of the bleach.

  68. Tamar Bihari on #

    OMG, you made me so happy with this post. I always felt like the freakish one, isolated in my coffee hating. I am no longer alone! I can hold my head high now, thanks to you and your myriad and plentiful like-minded commenters. Coffee haters of the world, unite!

    My cousin asked me last week how I can possibly wake up without coffee. I was stumped. How does anyone wake up? You just do. Sometimes slow, sometimes all of a sudden.

    (Oh, and also I didn’t learn to drive until I was in my late 20s and moved to Los Angeles a/k/a purgatory and was FORCED to, else I’d suffer DECADES of dependence and misery. My New York-raised self quavered but rallied and learned. Then I moved back east, back to the land of mass transit. Or, well, much closer to it, anyway.)

    (PS: Delurking. We apparently have at least one friend in common, also I love your novels. And your fun blog voice.)

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