We don’t go a day without coffee. Whether it’s brewing a homemade iced latte, getting coffee before school, at lunch, or finding an extra minute before class to hit up Sasha Coffee, you can always catch us with a beverage in hand.
Freshman year, neither of us drank coffee. We didn’t know the landscape of Berkeley High School, which cafes were good, which sold overpriced, watered down espresso, or which sold rich creamy lattes, and we didn’t know each other. We were both caught up in our own circles, not yet ready to explore — except for when I (Georgia) joined the Jacket as a photographer. I had no other friends in the photo section so every Thursday lunch, I was abruptly exiled from my close circle of friends and thrust into an unfamiliar, upperclassman-dominated group of photographers. It was an environment that spurred rapid personal growth; I was forced to become friends with unfamiliar people and take on unfamiliar challenges.
As soon as we grew comfortable with BHS, academic stress began weighing on us. Sophomore year hit us quickly, which was when I (Sophie) joined the Business team on the Jacket. Accompanied with mostly upperclassmen on the team, I quickly realized that college applications loomed in the future, Advanced Placement classes inspired countless hours of studying, and late nights were becoming the norm — hence the caffeine. The academic pressure also made every hour spent with friends a truly prized thing.
The Jacket room was a space that made the chaos of BHS a bit more manageable. Whether it was analyzing or critiquing photos for the recent issue or planning our spring fundraiser, being immersed in a tight-knit group of driven students, problem solving and exercising creativity together, although challenging, was a break from the continuous stress of our classes.
In our last semester of high school, we began reviewing coffee shops. Two cafes down and we see the parallel and value of finding friends that are like coffee: energizing, comforting, always by your side. We’ve learned how a good friendship, like a good latte, is sweet and complex, with nutty notes and bold flavor.
Good friends and good coffee will pull you out of the bed you’ve been doomscrolling in for the past few hours and make you do something productive, be it work or play.
As Sophie goes to Hanover and Georgia to New York, we’ll keep up with our debt-inducing coffee habits in our respective cities, getting a hit of caffeine from a delicious latte, but also from a FaceTime call with each other when we need it the most.
The Jacket has taught us growth happens when we branch out, intellectually and socially, especially when you take a risk with a new community.