As a Gilmore Girls fan, I have always wanted to like coffee. Not really because I thought it was the best-tasting thing in the world⊠I honestly thought it was just really aesthetic. Why canât I be a nonchalant academic weapon that drinks seven shots of espresso every day and look cute doing it? Despite this strong desire, I hated coffee. It was so bitter, it made my stomach hurt, and it always had such a gross aftertaste. On top of this, I am lactose intolerant, and every delicious-looking latte had to include whole milk. Basically, everything in the world and in my body was against me liking coffee, until my first semester in college.
Moving to Texas A&M University, my first goal was not to make all Aâs or have a bunch of friends; it was to start drinking coffee. I used TikTok as my main source of information and took many different influencers’ advice on how to start. I was recommended by various influencers to stick to iced drinks and to try sweeter flavors at the beginning of trying coffee.
So I took this advice and ran with it. I started going to local coffee shops to study and started small with very sweet, non-coffee-tasting coffees. I also only stuck with iced drinks; the ice acted as a watering-down agent that allowed me to further get a feel for the foreign taste of coffee. This got me used to the taste and the heaviness that some lattes have. Some of my favorites during this first era were Sweet Eugeneâs âAlmond Joy Latteâ and Starbucksâ various flavors of lattes at the time (Pumpkin Spice should be year-round). I also dabbled in the mocha realm, they never really stuck.Â
 Eventually, I got sick of the sweetness, and I slowly shifted towards espresso. For this endeavor, I turned to TikTok Starbucks hacks in order to produce cheap, espresso-based orders. My favorite being the doppio espresso banana bread latte hack! Before this coffee drinking adventure, I was an avid chai latte drinker. The spicy yet sweet flavor was my favorite, so to keep this in my rotation, I would make a chai with a shot of espresso. This turned out to be my favorite way to include coffee in one of my favorite beverages and furthered my eventual âlikingâ of coffee.Â
I also discovered the multitude of milks you can choose from. I started with almond milk, although its watery consistency turned me away quickly. I tried coconut milk, but the coconut flavor often overpowered my drinks and left me looking for the perfect non-milk mix. For one last shot, I tried oat milk, which ended up being the perfect milk consistency and subtle flavor for me.
 All of these things were adding up â was I finally on the way to liking coffee? The answer to this⊠kind of?Â
I didnât wake up craving a black coffee like my grandpa, but I did find myself trying new things that I had never done before. Coffee became something I wasnât forcing myself to swallow for the aesthetic; it became something I had grown to enjoy. Despite this, I have had my fair share of bad coffee orders â too sour, too bitter, or too sweet â that I just had to give up on completely. Sometimes, when this would happen, I would subconsciously think that a âreal coffee drinkerâ would like them. However, my development into coffee taught me something else: even though it’s super cute to have a pretty latte while you are studying, it’s more important you are drinking something you actually like.
Interestingly, this whole journey started as a superficial need to be more like Rory and Lorelai Gilmore. However, in the end, my coffee journey revealed to me that I donât have to reject my own preferences to fit a specific aesthetic. Sometimes it’s simple things like buying a cute glass cup or fun straw â because even if there is only one shot of espresso in it, Iâm creating my own aesthetic.