Coffee

Every morning, Moore makes herself a cup of coffee, as the effect of the drink’s caffeine helps her stay alert at school, which she says starts to wear off around lunch. Similarly, sophomore Zayd Musa shares that the main reason that he drinks coffee is to garner more energy for school. 

“We have to wake up early, so I’m always really tired in the mornings,” Musa said. “When all of my clubs and classes picked up and there was a lot of work, I decided I was getting really tired too. So I thought, why not try [some coffee] to see if I could get more energy?”

Moore shares that she was first exposed to coffee when she lived in India, adding that she comes from Southern India where “people are more coffee drinkers,” while people from Northern parts are tea drinkers. She articulates that growing up, she started drinking coffee because everybody in her household was making Indian coffee. 

Moore explains that she tries to make her coffee healthier by adding a creamer containing medium chain triglycerides, a type of fat that has multiple health benefits such as gut improvement and reduction of body fat.

For Musa, he states that he started drinking coffee at the beginning of the second semester. Currently, Musa’s favorite coffee is cold brew since it “has less bitter flavors,” he can make the coffee himself at home and it can be used to “make a lot of other types of drinks.”

Musa highlights that he initially did not enjoy the taste of coffee due to it being bitter. However, he also explains that as he “started drinking [coffee] more, he started to enjoy it [more].” 

“Now I do actually like the flavor of coffee because I got used to the bitter part,” Musa said. “There’s also [various] flavors, different types of roasts and different [add-ins] that you can use, [such as] milk, so I’m more enjoying the flavor [of coffee] now more than I did before.”