My friends know that I'm passionate about coffee to the point of obsession.
It's not that I have a caffeine addiction so powerful that I can’t get by without my daily cup of joe.
If burnt Starbucks-like coffee is the only option, I'd rather go a day without any coffee at all.
I like coffee because it's a nice hobby and part of my morning ritual since I was in middle school.
At home—an Italian, Latvian, Venezuelan mix—we always had morning "caffé latte" (coffee with milk) and espressos, and afternoon "marroncitos" ("brownish", Venezuelan style cappuccino).
So when I left for college I wanted to keep up with the habit—almost a tradition. It would've been hard to survive the long study sessions without caffeine.
So for the past ~10+ years, I've started my morning almost in the same identical way, grinding fresh coffee beans—with a hand grinder in college, now with a nice electrical burr grinder—and then brewing my morning cup.
Sometimes I'll do a pour-over with a Chemex and slowly sip coffee for a few hours. Others I'll just pull a robust double shot espresso and get down to business.
From the outside, coffee might look like an obsession. But to me, it’s a keystone habit that allows me to start my mornings in a zen-like state. There's something in the process of weighing, measuring the water temperature, and preparing the brew.
And I'm sure the caffeine also helps ;)