Who Knew?

I absolutely love pleasant surprises.  I mean, who doesn't?  But what I really love, my friends, is to be pleasantly surprised by a random idea that works out.  Even when it's an unimportant little nothing of an idea.  Or perhaps especially because it's an unimportant little nothing of an idea.  This one happens to be a moment in which I tried something a little odd with my coffee, and when I tasted it, I thought,  Hm.  Who knew?

I have probably mentioned that I am unable to drink unsweetened coffee.  I've tried, countless times, with some damn quality coffee even.  I'm actually a little ashamed that I can't be one of those serious, down-to-business, coffee-drinking badasses.  Alas, it's not me.  I like it sweet.  Just a bit sweet, anyway.

I've worked my way down the coffee-sweetening continuum, first eliminating the gross artificially flavored coffee creamer (or should I say "creamer"?), then cutting the natural ("natural?") vanilla creamer when they replaced the cane sugar with corn syrup (boo).  I moved on to making my own coffee creamer, here, and now, when I run out of that, I just use a little organic sugar.  Which is great.  But isn't always the thing.  Like in an iced coffee craving moment.  Which is what I had yesterday.

Having run out of the spiced simple syrup that I make, and use in conjunction with organic half and half, to flavor my coffee, I looked around the fridge, trying to decide whether to just have a hot coffee (the sugar dissolves, obviously, in hot coffee, rather than cold)...or to find something sweet with which to flavor my iced coffee.  (I know, weird to have a cold one in winter.  I usually don't.  Things are crazy around here these days though, and it felt right.)  Then I spotted the maple syrup.  I may have scratched my head in a puzzled sort of "I wonder" kind of way.  I went for it.  A wee teaspoon into my coffee, along with a bit of half and half.  And you know what?  It was absolutely delicious.

This morning, I had to test it out with my hot coffee, and again, I thought, well hey!  Who knew?  Just the tiniest amount of maple syrup to round out the edges of the coffee, with a barely perceptible hint of maple dancing around your taste buds.  This isn't just good, it's grand, I tell you.  The Mister is a bit of a coffee purist, and even he thought it was tasty.

Do not even think of using fake maple syrup here, please.  It's the real deal, or not at all.

I'm thinking of creating a Maple Coffee movement.  Which is probably the best kind of movement actually.

By the way, those white cups?  I scored those at the thrift store.  Spanking-new, Starbucks cups.  And they.  Are.  Awesome.  Bummer that they only had three of them.

Go drink some coffee.