The Edit: The Coffee

Dec 23

The Coffee

An Edit

She has a default.

She doesn't remember choosing it. At some point, years ago, this became her coffee. It's what she drinks. Every morning, same as the morning before. The brand, the method, the routine — all of it settled into place without a decision. It just became what she does.

She's never asked whether it's good. Not because she doesn't care — because the question never came up. Coffee is coffee. Hers tastes like hers tastes. She likes it fine. She's been drinking it the same way for so long that the preference and the habit have become the same thing.

This is the thing she consumes most and examines least. She has opinions about restaurants. She knows what she wants in wine, in olive oil, in the bread she buys. She researched her mattress. She considered her sheets. But coffee — the thing she drinks every single day, more than water, more than anything else she puts in her body — just is what it is. Default. Unexamined. Fine.

She doesn't know what fresh coffee tastes like. The bag on her counter, if it has a roast date at all, is likely months old. She doesn't know because she's never checked. She doesn't know what the words on the label mean. "Specialty." "Single-origin." "Artisan." They're on every bag now. Some are regulated. Most aren't. She's been paying for language, not quality, and she has no way to know the difference.

She's never compared. She's been drinking the same coffee for years without tasting it against anything else. Her preference isn't a preference — it's a default that never got questioned. She doesn't know if she likes this coffee or if she's just used to it.

The default works. It's not broken. She's not suffering. But she applies intention to everything else in her life — her home, her wardrobe, her time — and this one thing, the thing she does first every single day, has somehow escaped scrutiny.

The default has never been examined.

The investigation continues in The Coffee · A Dossier. What earns designation: The Coffee · The Monclaire Guide.

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