Everyday Is Coffee Day

I love coffee. I drink coffee every day. I used to drink 2 or 3 cups a day. I’m down to only one in the morning, and maybe one in the afternoon. If I get invited “to go have a coffee”, I’ll always say yes. For me, coffee is comfort and warmth. It’s a connection to my family, to my ancestors, and to my culture. I am from Puerto Rico, and as far back as I remember, everyone in my family loves coffee, so it’s part of our traditions. You visit family, they offer you coffee. Before offering water, or juice, or any other drink, they offer coffee first.

Read my previous post about why I love coffee here https://fullofcoffee.blog/2019/02/20/lets-talk-about-my-love-for-coffee

National Coffee Day is celebrated in the United States of America on September 29th. It was established in 2010 and promoted by the National Coffee Association, to celebrate coffee culture. For more information, visit http://www.ncausa.org/Industry-Resources/Events-Education-Networking/NCA-National-Coffee-Day.

This day becomes a popular celebration, since many businesses promote and offer a free cup of coffee. I do enjoy these offers, I mean, a free cup of coffee? Yes, please! For more information of places to visit in USA, check this article from USA Today https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/food/2019/09/26/national-coffee-day-2019-free-coffee-and-deals-sept-29/2425288001/

The International Coffee Day is celebrated on October 1st. It was established in 2015 by the International Coffee Organization. This one is celebrated in many countries around the world, although some countries celebrate on different dates. This day, besides promoting and celebrating coffee culture globally, it also brings awareness to the fair trade of coffee, and the coffee farmers and people who dedicate their lives and efforts to cultivate coffee. For more information, visit https://www.internationalcoffeeday.org/about

Getting to know people, especially on social media, I’ve become curious about how my friends, and the people I reach out to, feel about coffee. When I was in college, I found a group of friends that enjoyed coffee, just like me. We’d get together to study, then after spending the evening at the library, we’d go get coffee (yes, we did hang out at the library, remember I am a nerd).

I’ve expressed my love for coffee many times, that many friends have reached out to tell me how much they enjoy coffee too. I’ve had a few tell me they don’t like it or have never tried it at all. I understand, as I live with people who don’t drink coffee.

With this in mind, I decided to do a survey with 10 simple questions. Believe me when I say I had many more questions in mind. I obtained the maximum of 100 responses in just 2 weeks (thank you to all who participated!).

There were a couple of glitches. Unfortunately, the website I used marked all responses as coming from “Facebook”. It didn’t recognized the ones that came from Twitter. I did posted on Twitter, and I got good feedback. I also contacted friends through Messenger, Whats-App, and even by text message.

First, let me show you a quick summary of the responses:

Question 1, What is your age?: 95 responses, 5 skipped. The youngest participant was a 16 years old female, and the oldest participant was a 73 years old male. The biggest age group that responded was the 40-49 group (35), followed by 50-59 (23), 30-39 (16), 60-69 (12), 20-29 (6), 70-79 (2), then 1 of 16.

Question 2, What is your gender? 100 responses, 0 skipped. Females: 79 Males: 21.

Question 3, Relationship status: 98 responses, 2 skipped. 50 Married, 1 Widowed, 18 Divorced, 4 Separated, 3 In a domestic partnership, 6 Single but cohabiting, and 16 Single, never married.

Question 4, Place of residence: 93 responses, 7 skipped.

There was another small glitch. I used some questions suggested by the website. When I was reviewing the answers, I realized this question asked “What CITY do you currently live in?” Well, it didn’t specify what state or country, and I didn’t think at the time it needed to be corrected. So there were some cities that I had to research, and there were a couple of cities I had to guess.

The responses to this question, for me, were very interesting. I received 60 responses from the continental United States of America (USA), and 33 responses from outside of the USA. Those 33 responses, included participants from Puerto Rico (26), Canada (1), Denmark (1), India (1), Spain (2), and United Kingdom (2). It actually shows how broad the scope of the research is when social networks are used. It shows how we can reach people in other countries, how we connect and communicate through Internet and the well known World Wide Web (www).

From the 60 responses of people living in USA, I received responses from 23 states: Arizona (2), California (2), Colorado (1), Florida, my home state (20), Georgia (5), Illinois (1), Indiana (2), Iowa (1), Kentucky (1), Louisiana (1), Maryland (1), Massachusetts (2), Michigan (1), Nevada (2), New Jersey (2), New York (3), North Carolina (3), Ohio (3), Oregon (1), South Carolina (3), Tennessee (1), Texas (1), and Washington (1). This actually impressed me. Again, thanks to all who participated.

Question 5, Like or dislike coffee: 98 responses, 2 skipped.

Question 6, Beverage of preference: 53 responses, 47 skipped.

There was another glitch, this one on my part. The question read “If you don’t like coffee, what’s your beverage of preference”. Well, I got responses from people who like coffee, as what’s the beverage of preference after coffee. Preferred drink was tea, then other, then soda, and then juice. For people who responded they don’t like coffee, the preferred drink was juice (3), tea (2), followed by soda (2), other (2), and 1 skipped.

Question 7, Age when started drinking coffee: 96 responses, 4 skipped.

Question 8, Who influenced you to start drinking coffee: 95 responses, 5 skipped.

Question 9, Do you prefer going out for coffee, drinking it at home, or don’t have a preference, I like both options: 93 responses, 7 skipped.

Question 10, How many times a day do you usually drink coffee?: 98 responses, 2 skipped. From 0 minimum to 10 cups maximum.

To discuss these findings, I had so many options to manage these responses. It turned out to be a pretty interesting research. I can discuss results by gender, by age, by residence, or by relationship status. Curious enough, of 100 responses, the only question that was answered by the 100 participants was the gender one: 79 females, 21 males.

The responses to relationship status were also interesting: 50 participants are married. I added the ones in domestic partnerships (3), and cohabiting with someone (6), for a total of 59. I also added all the responses to single (16), divorced (18), separated (4) and widowed (1), plus 2 skipped responses, for a total of 41. I concluded that 59 people are living with a partner, and 41 are in no relationships.

My main interest for doing this survey is how many people of the 100 participants like coffee. Well, I received 75 responses for “like a great deal”, and 15 for “like somewhat” for a total of 90 responses. Then received 10 responses combined for “neither like or dislike” (1), “dislike somewhat” (2), “dislike a great deal” (5), and 2 skipped.

From the 90 participants who like coffee:

• 69 are females, 21 are males
• 65 are married or in a relationship, 15 are single, divorced, or separated
• 51 are from USA, 25 from Puerto Rico, 7 from other countries, 7 skipped.

Of these 90 participants, when asked who influenced them to drink coffee (1 skipped):

• by family (60) : 38 as a child, 15 as a teenager, 4 as adults, 3 don’t remember
• by a friend (6): 1 as teenager, 5 as adults
• by partner (3): 2 as adults, 1 don’t remember
• by myself (20): 1 as a child, 2 as a teenager, 17 as adults.

Those 20 participants who started drinking coffee on their own, I’d love to know what made you try coffee: curiosity, the smell, people talking about coffee? I know of one person who did tell me that he started drinking coffee while going on a long road trip, to see if it would keep him alert. From then on, he continued drinking coffee.

Of those 90 participants, I now discuss people who like to go out for coffee, drink it at home or don’t have a preference and like both options. Let me show you the numbers (89 responses, 1 skipped):

• prefer going out for coffee (7): all females; 3 married, 2 divorced, 2 single; 2 from USA, 2 from PR, 2 from other countries, 1 skipped residence. Coincidentally, 5 started drinking coffee as adults, 1 as teenager, 1 don’t remember;
• prefer drinking coffee at home (23): 16 females, 7 males; 18 are married or have partners (all of the males have partners), 5 are single or divorced; 13 from USA, 6 from PR, 4 skipped residence;
• like both options -drink coffee out or at home- (59): 45 females, 14 males; 33 married, 25 single or divorced, 2 didn’t answer; 36 from USA, 17 from PR, 5 from other countries, 2 didn’t answer.

On how many times a day participants drink coffee, I received a whole variety of responses. The majority of responses was 2 cups (28), followed by 1 cup (22). I had a whole bunch of different responses: 0 (5), 1 (22), 2 (28), 3 (15), 4 (3), 5 (1), 6 (1), and 7 (1). Then people also responded: 1-2 (4), 2-3 (5), 3-4 (1), 4-5 (1), 5-6 (1), 2-4 (1), 2-6 (1), 4-8 (1), 8-10 (1). Then I also had the following responses: 2 or more (1), 6 or more (1). One person responded “once a week”, and another responded “maybe 3 a month”. Two people added the comment “depending on weather”.

And of course, there were 2 responses that made me smile. To the question “how many times a day do you drink coffee?”, one person responded “All day”, and another one responded “Enough”. Good ones and both valid, for sure.

As a result, I’ve concluded that I have many friends who, like me, like coffee a great deal, started drinking coffee as a child, were influenced by their family, and don’t have a preference as to where to have their coffee. They enjoy it whether at home or going out.

Thank you all who participated, and all who read my stories. Thank you for following me on this journey. If you are on social media, I’m on Twitter as Nydia Raquel #FullofCoffee (@nydiaraquel25). My son recently asked me why am I using “Full of Coffee”. I responded “why do you think?”, to which he said “because you like coffee too much”. He gets it. I also created a page on Facebook, you can visit and like here https://www.facebook.com/fullofcoffeeblog/.

As always, no matter where you are from, or where in the world you are reading from, or what time zone you live in, it’s always time for my tacita de café. Salud!

Para versión en español, vea https://fullofcoffee.blog/2019/09/29/todos-los-dias-es-dia-del-cafe/.