I drank coffee since I was about 6 months old. I’m not kidding. My parents would actually treat me by giving me a tiny teaspoon of delicious homemade Bustelo coffee. The drink is an integral part of the Dominican culture, more than most. I drank it religiously for breakfast before school and I would enjoy a cup with my family in the evening throughout grade school and a while after that as well. By the time I entered college I stopped drinking it, the time most normal people begin to. The caffeine did little for me because of the tolerance, it wasn’t filling me during breakfast, and brewing it at home was something I did not want to go through the effort to do. So I stopped, until very recently.

By the time the first semester of my fourth year in pharmacy school began, I began sleeping about 5 hours a day on average (more on weekends, less on school days), I was and still am dealing with a lengthy commute, a larger load of work, and 8 am classes five days a week that I wake up at 5 a.m. to attend. The courses were vital and if I didn’t pay attention I was going to fail, so I began to drink my dark roast coffee again from the Starbucks near my class. It performed wonders because although I was still tired and it didn’t make up for the sleep, it continues to energize me enough to listen to my professor and take notes for two hours. The trip to the bathroom right after is a small sacrifice to pay for a degree. That was just the academic benefit, though. Quickly, I started to become a part of the coffee culture.

Yes, the coffee culture. It’s not just about getting a rush of energy for a few hours before inevitably crashing or taking the alternative course of grabbing another coffee and crashing more vigorously. Coffee, believe it or not, creates an environment. Whether it is at the local Starbucks, a cute café, or a tiny apartment kitchen, coffee makes it cozy. The heat, the smell, the subconscious energy and positive vibes it invokes has a way of making anything and everything a little bit better. It doesn’t matter who you are, how busy your schedule is, or what you need to do- it sets the atmosphere to relax for just a bit and make it a little easier to smile. It’s that simple, yet robust energy and spirit that brings people together. It brings my family together for conversations that last hours, it gives me a reason to break from my studies and socialize with friends, it gives people the opportunity to find familiar faces and meet new ones.

As crazy as it might sound, coffee is a kind of universal language that brings people of entirely different backgrounds together, in a fulfilling and genuinely happy way more often than not. For me, the drink of my childhood and culture matured with me. What was once just an energy drink evolved into a pocket of time I could relax, talk and even be productive in. I write my articles and study in a coffee shop at any given chance, I reconnect with friends I don’t ordinarily have the time to see, I enjoy the end of my week with the girl I love, and I try to start my mornings off with that energy every day. You see, the caffeine was always just a bonus. What coffee actually does is build community and make things just a little bit better.