Stephen often teases me about being a brat. Which I admit to and I tease him back. Because he’s one, too.  That being said, I’d like to offer up a confession of yet one more facet by which I am a complete and utter Brat.  

So last night officially marked the grand finale to my career as a Barista for Starbucks Coffee Company, and this morning, my first full week of being a one job kind of lady.

I feel that there are a lot of odds and ends that go along with this sort of responsibility of being a working woman in a quasi-professional office. Certain expectations to uphold and others to ignore. One of these expectations that I made a brief effort of adhering to this morning was the concept of community coffee. You know exactly what I’m talking about and that is the morning tradition in any workplace to hover around the coffee pot, making small talk while waiting for the pot to reach a point where it is acceptable to pour yourself a cup of sweet morning addiction and then head off to your desk to play on Wikipedia. The past few mornings I’ve worked here, I’ve foregone the community coffee as I have had time to share a french press of Kopelani with Stephen Chase. However, this morning my selfish need for shut eye kept me in bed longer than I should have been and a fresh press was just not in the cards. “That’s fine,” I figured, “I’m goin’ native,” and I picked up my coffee mug and toted it into the break room like I was one of them and had been doing it for years.

The aroma wasn’t as inviting as I like, but I didn’t think much of it and poured myself a heaping helping while discussing weekends with a woman whose name I have yet to master. Upon returning to my desk I took a long sip of the contents of my mug and didn’t know how to react.

You see, when you are a Wee Barista and attend Starby’s School, they make you try one of the “Other Brands” to see how it in no way compares to the “gold standard” that Howard Schultz has created. Dirt, coffee flavored water, bitter, bland. These are just some of the varieties of slander that they encourage you to present at this tasting. And yes, they’re true, but my skeptic brain thinks that they must have done something to it. Like nuke it, or re-brew last weeks grinds, or whatever. There’s no way anything can taste that awful. There’s just no way. Well, as it happens, I’ve been spoiled rotten by Starbucks Coffee, even if they *do* over-roast their beans (I agree, they do). But it doesn’t matter. I’ll take burnt, over-roasted Fair Trade Blend (a blend that Starbucks no longer sells in their retail stores and for DAMN good reason. It very well may have been The Most Disgusting Starbucks Coffee to ever be roasted and sold under the sun.) over Folgers any damn day of the week. If this was the only coffee I knew to be in existence in the world, I promise you that I would wish never to wake up as it would be The Worst Part of doing so.

You sit on a throne of lies.

So, thanks, Starbucks. Your coffee may not be the best, but it’s damn better than this crap and right now, I’d do just about anything for a “Fresh every ‘30′minutes” Pike’s Place.

I think I’m going to officially come out as being a coffee snob and start bringing my mini-press (courtesy of Bride-to-Be Kellie Davis!) and some Kopelani (Addicted.). Don’t hate.