When no one drinks coffee anymore

The ToT does not drink coffee. This fact is always met with quiet puzzlement by many. The ToT is puzzled why so many people are addicted to it. It's not just a casual beverage for many; it's a critical part of their diet.

I simply don't see where the value-added is. Caffeine is a nasty drug that gives me headaches and dehydrates the drinker. It costs a lot of money these days because it's gone upscale. Coffee grounds are just plain disgusting. The taste is apparently something that one must get used to - always a warning sign to the ToT.

Like alcohol, I suspect many drink it so they can seamlessly fit in with the majority and their enthusiasm is really not for the drink but for the conformity.

I'm not anti-coffee - my parents drank it and the rich smell always reminds me of breakfast. But I also can see how coffee drinking might mostly disappear in the future, discarded like a bad idea that only a few stalwarts stick to, like smoking, beating children, abstinence until marriage and being drunk most of one's waking hours (see the pre-Prohibition era).

There's a natural progression of moral awakening that evolves over time, guaranteed to make the older generation upset that some beloved part of their life is now considered verboten.
It is a cycle at least as old as America: one old pilgrim says to another "Quakers in Massachusetts - outrageous!"

Something is lurking out there that shocks each generation by its disappearance when they get older. Boomers and those older than them can't get around the acceptance of gays, but younger people do, for the most part. Racial tolerance is growing by birth year too. So as the ToT moves through his 30s, he wonders what is it that will shock and outrage us Gen X-ers? Pissing in public? No, that's the reactionary response. It's always something that is patently wrong but going on all around us, something that if we thought about a bit, we'd go, yeah, that's not right. And then go about our business. Like segregation in the 40s.

If you can't imagine coffee drinking disappearing, I am with you, well at least most of the way. It probably won't happen for a long, long time. But it's Achilles' heel is the caffeine. American society has become less tolerant of body-altering drugs and caffeine is becoming the one that is still considered acceptable. But for how long? And why?

Some of you are wondering how you would be able to get going in the morning without coffee. Hello, you have a caffeine problem. Either you don't get enough sleep, or that sluggishness is withdrawal from your last caffeine fix from the day before (coffee with dessert?). Ew, now caffeine starts to sound like cocaine and not as attractive. This is how the mindset will change.

Yes, there probably will be a drink of social interaction, even if coffee disappears. I don't know what it is. Water would be the healthiest option. But I do know that the future will come for us Gen Xers and knock some common pillar out of the world we are used to. And it's something that we're all subconsciously aware of already.