“Mmm. Tastes like California.”

“Iced coffee?” my coworker nudges.

“You know it.”

Of course, my iced coffee doesn’t actually have much California in it, being from a local café on the main street of Salt Lake City. Even the espresso was extracted from Caffe Ibis beans, a Utah roaster from my hometown.

However, there are some cups of iced coffee that really taste nostalgic, calling to mind memories of that golden state. While I had a very special relationship with Caffe Ibis from a young age, I didn’t really start drinking coffee until the tail-end of my fifteenth year on the planet. In the summer of 2016, my family drove 12 painful hours to the Bay Area for a casual vacation–the objective: to see Liverpool play a match in the US. (They won!!) That trip was the true beginning of my love affair with espresso.

Every morning, we made a coffee stop and I got an iced drink to bear the summer heat. Sometimes a mocha, sometimes a vanilla latte, sometimes a plain latte. I cradled a condensating mocha in my arms lying in the back of the car as we rumbled across the Nevada desert. I held an iced coffee in my hand as we walked through and under the legendary Embarcadero buildings, taking sips of it between snapping pictures. Every day, the soundtrack of my first time in the bay area was accented by the delicious taste of an ice cold espresso+milk drink. 

Our parents already had a great affection for Oakland, having history there. But I was visiting for the very first time. For the first time, I walked through the city on a summer day. I looked out the window of our temporary apartment in the sunrise. I watched birds and caught water-type Pokémon at the lake. All the while, I felt strangely at home. San Francisco was so big and beautiful, but in Oakland… something about the way the breeze touched my skin, the way the sunlight reflected off the buildings, and the sound of the locals mulling about was everything to me. 

Looking back, it’s clear that our Bay trip was very special to me. It certainly informed my travel style–opting out of expensive, flashy, and more touristy activities for something laid back and easygoing. I like to stay in a residential neighborhood, go to the nearby grocery store and coffee shops, and spend my time in my destination as if I were living there. As sentimental as it is to say, I think Oakland’s where I fell in love for the first time. With life, with the city, and yes, with coffee… For a grouchy teenager like me, that meant a lot.

So, seven years later, I’m a big coffee drinker. I have an espresso machine on my kitchen countertop that I use to pull shots to start my day, and I love to spend my free time at cafés. My love for coffee has been passionate ever since. And there’s a part of me that’s always missing Oakland, too.

It’s no secret that travel can be formative. For better, or for worse, it shifts something in your cells, writes neural pathways inside of your skull. Every new adventure I go on, every trip I take, I can’t wait to find out how I’ll grow, how I’ll become new. And every once in a while, whether through a sip of iced coffee or watching a train go by, I like to reflect on where I’ve been and how it’s made me who I am.