No way! Who says I drink Nescafe?

As a rule, I don't drink Nescafe!!

Really!

Trust me!!!

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Okay, I can hear snickering in the room now!

Truth is.. I HATE Nescafe.. or any kinda coffee for that sake. During school, Mama usually prepared Nescafe for only her (with milk) and Abah (strong and black). Then it was Iwan, I think, who started to drink Nescafe too and the others started to follow suit, accordingly. So towards the time I came back to stay home after 3 years in the hostel, the morning beverage was mainly Nescafe and I did my own tea.. yup! I'm the tea drinker of the family.

I hated the bitter taste of Nescafe, even when sweetened milk was added. It surprised me on how much my family drank THAT drink while I'd rather have tea. Sometimes, I'd be the only one drinking it haha.. yeah, the whole teapot of it!

Oh yeah! Another reason I hated Nescafe was because I suck at preparing it. Back home, weekend breakfasts were supposed to be prepared by us children (READ: Kak Yong je le tuuu!). I didn't mind preparing the food, we loved experimenting with anything from the fridge, but I hated preparing the drinks (READ: the coffee!).

A pot of tea was a must, as I really dig in it. Milo was also a must for the lil' ones.. but coffee was supposed to be prepared for both my parents (before we started doing it in pots, to replace Milo, when almost everyone in my family started drinking it!). I'd be struggling the whole time, trying to remember the best ratio for coffee and sugar. Mama and Abah would just smile sweetly when they drank their coffee, but would drop subtle hints on how weak my coffee was.. aaarrrggghh! I gave up after a few weeks, Iwan was better at it so I graciously handed the task to him.

When I rented with kak Shima and kak Kathy, I was pleasantly surprised to find out kak Shima was a tea drinker too. We loved trying out any kinds of tea, though my tastebuds couldn't actually differentiate Earl Grey and English Breakfast. But I loved the fruit infused ones and the flavoured ones, thus the result: Our house was filled with all kinds of teas, much to kak Kathy's horror when she preferred plain Boh tea bags.

I have two avid coffee-drinker friends: Pojie and Yun. Its VERY seldom that they order anything else than Nescafe o' ais that I could conclude confidently both of them contribute A LOT to the profit of Nestle in their Nescafe sales. Without these two, Nestle would certainly suffer a great deal of loss.

Anyway, its not that I didn't drink it at all. A plus at not drinking coffee is that the caffeine in it surely helps whenever I wanna stay up, as opposed to for those immune to its effect already.

So, when I was busy with my writing for my thesis, I started buying tinned Nescafe. I mean, I HAD to stay up till 5am so coffee finally had an important part in my life. Still, I only bought the weakest one, Latte flavour.

Since I started staying up till 2am, I only needed 1 tin per day. Then I started staying up a bit later, until 3am. Gradually, it turned to 4am, and by this time, I needed another tin to help me stay up. Towards the end of my writing, I needed yet another tin to help keep me awake during the day, thus, making it into a total of at least 3 tins per day.

By then, Lie and Ramlah had commented that I'm addicted to Nescafe, much to my horror. As usual, I denied any kind of association with THAT drink, and stood my ground saying I only use it to stay up!

However, something made me feel like I was lying haha.. Then when I went to the postgrad room's fridge, I noticed that they were probably a tad bit right when I realized I had stocked 3 tins in the fridge for that day's se.. so I vowed, once I submit my 10 copies, I'd stop..

Fat chance!!!!!

After I had submitted, I thought it'd be good riddance to the tins of Nescaffe Latte. However, I found that I HAD to drink them so I won't get sleepy during my nightly tuition classes.. I blame this on the lack of sleep during the whole time of my writing. Still, I thought, when the school holidays come, I'd stop since I won't have any classes..

..or so I thought!

Turned out, cikgu Arun had scheduled night classes for me during the school holidays. So once again I became victim to the NescafeLatteignitis..

Just a few days ago, Choong was commenting on how much I love my Nescafe Latte and I was about to argue about it when I noticed the tins of Nescafe on his book rack. You see, Choong is an avid recycler (does this word even exist?) so I always keep my old newspapers and aluminium cans for him. For the cans, I always put them on top of his book rack whenever I finish drinking the beverages..

The picture above shows my Nescafe consumpiton of two weeks. Mind you, on weekends I seldom drink them as I 'don't have the need' to keep myself awake so those tins were usually from the weekdays..

..and I was suprised!

Hahah..

When Choong followed me to my car to collect the cans I've been keeping for drinks I take during my bight classes, once again he laughed at the bulk of it..

He left me with this question..

"Are you sure you hate Nescafe?"

..to which I honestly don't have any answer!! :)