I was spooning out the residual foam from my latte cup when I decided to write this. Maybe that’s what this exercise is meant to be. A last taste of a decade. If my twenties had been a latte, it would have been a quad shot, whole milk masterwork whipped up by an amateur barista holed up in a Craigslist rooming situation. The cup would be expensive. The shots would’ve been pulled from a vintage AMA Milano heat pump.
I think the first sips of the latte of my twenties would be like a wave of toasty bitterness over the tongue of a young man awake before the sun, lacing his hiking boots and throwing his Black Diamond day-pack into the back seat of his Tacoma. It’s the first abandoned coffee in the parking lot at the trailhead. But an expensive, vacuum sealed, double-walled travel cup does, in fact, travel well.
Hours after the hike, when the young man steps out of the shower, he takes another sip. Throwing a t-shirt over his head and spending that extra energy grooming up for an 8 hour marathon of social events. The latte would taste like jet fuel then. All the caffeine makes an appearance. Tastes of bourbon, night clubs, pool halls, and campfire smoke repeatedly punch you in the face until you’re singing your lungs out into the 2AM stillness. The espresso and the milk had separated, and the black tar ristretto is just oil for the chaos.
But then – at the end of all that – when the bite died down, the last legs of the latte were the best part all together. The burn sizzled into a creamy, sweet comfort. Those last sips bringing forth music, love, and home. The final swirl that leaves a smile upon the lips and a lingering gratitude in the heart. The latte of the twenties smoothed out into the taste I’d taste forever – and I settled on the feeling that I wouldn’t have made it any other way. Bite, cream, foam, and all.
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