Being Noah Tesfaye #22: Really, Now Coffee Is Cancerous?

Alright, here’s an honest fact: I’m a coffee addict. I don’t hide it. I’m not ashamed of it. In fact, I love coffee so much that I think it makes me truly appreciate how amazing coffee is. So when I read earlier this week on the Guardian that “California law requires coffee companies to carry an ominous cancer warning label because of a chemical produced in the roasting process,” I lost my damn mind.

Here’s a funny story. I was never a coffee drinker. I didn’t enjoy coffee and did not really understand why people could enjoy it. Then, last summer, I had my first lecture at Columbia. Combined with the jet lag and lack of sleep, I could not stay awake during the second lecture of the day. So on Tuesday, the next day, I went to the coffee shop under my dorm and got some iced tea. That seemed to do the trick. So Wednesday arrives, I go to get my iced tea, and they ran out. My friend suggested I get some cold brew, some drink so foreign to me that I just went along with them and got a medium. This single cold brew changed my life. It changed everything.

For starters, as an Ethiopian/Eritrean, coffee runs through my blood. It’s part of my heritage. There is always coffee time whenever we go back to Addis and every time I visit relatives who are more in-tune with the culture, they always brew coffee the Habesha way. The instant I…