Growing up in the south, my parents and grandparents would always make up these stories to persuade the kids not to do something. The craziest one that we ever heard was from my Grannie.

Born and raised in deep south Alabama through the 20th century, she was full of old myths. Papa was in the kitchen making the usual breakfast spread: Grits, bacon, sausage, biscuits, eggs — you know, the good stuff. I saw all the grown folks in the house getting a cup of coffee, so I thought I would grab one myself. That’s when Grannie hit me with the craziest myth yet. “Boy don’t drink any coffee. It will make you blacker.” Now there are several things wrong with that statement, but that is for another conversation, I just know in that moment, I never wanted to drink coffee. Her scare tactic worked.

It took me 15 years to brave my stigma of coffee and try it for the first time.

I, like most, started out putting all things sweet into my coffee. I would eventually find myself putting less and less into the coffee, until I tasted the bittersweet goodness. There are plenty of scientific reasons for why you should drink your coffee black, but I will leave that to the smart people. I’ll give you five reasons why you should drink coffee black, just for the heck of it.

1. It is quick and easy, and you have less to worry about.

All you have to do is brew your roast and put it into whatever you are going to drink out of. There is no added resources such as sugar, milk and whatever else you may put into your coffee.

2. You are seen as the “cool guy.”

In this weird hipster generation, it impresses people. In fact, if you don’t drink black coffee, the hipster delegation will shun you from society.

3. It is a natural diuretic.

When you got to go, you got to go.

4. The bitterness will smack you in the face when you need it most.

When you are up late studying or having to be up early in the morning, nothing says good morning like the taste of black coffee.

5. And lastly, the blacker the berry the sweeter the juice.