Hello everyone! Today, September 29th, is International Coffee Day! As you all know very well, I'm quite the coffee fiend. I named my blog after the liquid gold, and even earned myself the senior superlative of "java junkie" my senior year of high school. My love for this little bean knows no bounds. I even took a tour of a coffee plantation high in the Puerto Rican mountains this summer, and drank what was arguably the best dang cup of coffee I've ever had -- fresh from the roaster, beans picked and dried just days prior. The stuff was so fresh and delicious and pure, it converted my mother (a staunch purist and strict tea drinker, face puckering at the slightest sip of coffee at the bitterness) into a coffee drinker.

Coffee has a long and fascinating history in the world, and somewhere along the line, a match made in heaven was forged between the delicious ichor and the wondrous magic of the written word. Coffee and literature have a love story for the ages, and when Milena from Signature (a website by Penguin Random House dedicated to books and culture) reached out to me about colaborating on a post for International Coffee Day, I didn't have to be asked twice!