Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Ever Let Your Coffee Get Cold

Good Morning!

I’m not going to let my coffee get cold today.  I’m not, going to let, my coffee, get cold today!

I’m going to finish the entire thing while it’s still at the right temperature.

I’m going to finish it because yesterday, the last two mouthfuls for the lack of a better way to put it, left a poor taste in my mouth.

It tarnished the experience that I expected to end well.

I already knew before I drank coffee, that it was cold and that the cream might be off, but I rolled the dice anyways.

When I look back on why I finished it: I didn’t want to waste it because I put effort into making it, and because I thought I needed it.

The aftertaste of the cold coffee was an experience that I didn’t care for considering I didn’t intend for it to get cold in the first place. I wanted a congruent coffee experience, like I normally have.

What the poor ending to my morning coffee experience did for me yesterday, was allow me to connect a few a few thoughts together.

The experience matters. The is especially true if we have formed habits around what we do on a constant basis.  We expect the experience to be the same throughout. The congruency of the experience from start to finish plays a large role in how we rate the quality of an experience and forming an opinion of it as generally good or bad. 

Timing is important, and sometimes everything. Had I remembered to start the kettle first so that I could pour some hot water into the mug to get it warm before I pull my shots, my coffee probably wouldn’t have gotten cold in the amount of time I normally take to enjoy my coffee.

How you finish is what creates the lasting impression. Regardless of how the entire experience goes as whole, we tend to only remember the really high points and all of the bad stuff. The slogan “good to the last drop” comes to mind.

Finish what you’re doing on a high point. We generally like to have a positive outcome when we do things. Finishing on a high point is one of the best ways to create a positive lasting impression of the overall experience and sets the tone of how we remember the entire experience. The reciprocal of this is also true, finish on a low point and the entire experience will be tarnished.

It’s never too late to make something right. You can always reflect on what went wrong, ask some questions and do some research to figure out why the outcome you arrived at was different than what you had expected. A new plan of action can be made for the next time, or steps can be taken to improve the situation.

Impressions can be changed if expectations are managed. Have you ever tried iced coffee? It’s pretty good right? Cold brew (or iced) coffee has a different taste to it because the extraction process is much, much slower. If I started out by making cold coffee in the first place, I would have managed my expectations.

Just because you put effort into something, doesn’t mean you have to live with it. This is a negative feed back statement. I could have just poured the cold coffee down the drain, but my morning coffee ritual takes time and a bit of effort to prepare a good cup and it seemed like a waste to not finish it. The whole experience was tarnished.

This is a lot like putting effort into a career that gets your priorities all mixed up, makes you sick and act like person you didn’t want to become. When knowing for certain that there will be a bitter ending, it’s better to make the hard decision to end on a high point.

So did I finish my coffee this morning before it got cold? I sure did.

Was the last sip as good as the first? I’ll make sure to warm up the mug more next time. 😊

Have a great day!