Becoming an Oregonian

These days, most cities and towns, even wide spots in the road, have some sort of coffee shop. But Oregon has some particularly good ones, local companies trying to set themselves apart from the bloated, megaglobal chains like Starbucks. Oregon also has a lot of drive-thru coffee shops, usually with two-sided access.

I don't have many choices with my routes between home and Corvallis so I drive up and down the same road quite often. The grocery store I use is on this road. And so is a drive-thru kiosk of one of the local coffee companies. This chain has maybe four kiosks in the area, so it is particularly small. They open this particular shop every day at 4am, hoping to entice early morning truck and commuter traffic coming into Corvallis from points west. The owner must pay his baristas well. The same bright, young girl has been working at this particular shop since I arrived in the area back in April.

I am trying to stick to a budget and drinking coffee out is rather a luxury. For the price of a small latte, I can buy a box of 20 teabags--almost three weeks' worth. For the price of two small lattes, I can buy a pound of ground coffee, enough to make at home for months. It's hard to justify spending so much money on one cup of coffee. But I don't have an espresso machine at home and I quite like the taste of fancy coffee. Every so often, I simply have to get a small mocha on my way into to campus in the morning.

I must drink coffee and tea and eat chocolate in moderation; too much caffeine triggers migraines for me, so no matter where I get it, my caffeine intake is strictly measured and limited. Still, a small cup of fancy coffee is within my daily caffeine allowance!

I probably visit this particular shop on average one or two times every couple of weeks. That's not a lot, certainly it's not a daily occurrence nor is it predictable as I could fancy a fancy coffee just about any day of the week. And as I said, the same young woman is always the barista when I go there. I always order the same thing, a 12 ounce mocha (with no sugar), the perfect combination of warmth, coffee, and chocolate.

This morning I decided was a good morning for fancy coffee. Heavy fog developed at dawn and it was damp and chilly. So on my way to school, I pulled off the main road to the coffee shop. I had to wait behind one car. I was listening to some jazz on the radio (Louis Armstrong) to pass the time. When the car left, I pulled up, rolled down the window, and the young woman leaned out, smiled, and said, "small mocha?". I said, yes, and she handed me the mocha already made up. I laughed and said, did you make this just now? She smiled again and said, yes, I saw you through the windows. I tipped her extra, of course!

This must be a rite of passage for becoming an Oregonian. You find a favorite coffee shop, become a regular, and after a while, the baristas don't ask you what you want. They start making up your order when they see you arrive!

I would offer up the second piece of evidence for my possible increasing Oregonian-ness. It's only a few minutes more of driving to go from "my" coffee kiosk to the parking lot on the edge of campus that I use, not enough time to even get started on that mocha. I park, unload my bike, put on my backpack, grab the coffee, and pedal across campus to my first class holding my coffee in one hand. I rarely spill a drop.