Seltzer, My Beloved

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  Taste is an interesting sense for me because I don’t feel like I have a strong connection to it. I am notoriously a picky eater. Although I’m not the pickiest, even in my family, I feel like my pickiness is still noticeable. As I’ve grown up I feel like I’ve grown to appreciate more foods and tastes, but my favorite of my acquired tastes is seltzer.

Anyone who knows me knows that I have a bit of a problem when it comes to my love of seltzer. Every time a college break rolls around my family likes to joke that the only reason I’m going home is so that I can restock my seltzer cupboards on their dime, and they’re not wrong. However if you met me five years ago, I would have spit seltzer out and refused to drink it vehemently. 

About 10 years ago my mom decided to cut caffeine, and by extension soda, out of her life. She realized that Diet Coke was doing far more damage than good to her so she decided that it would be for the best to leave it behind. However, as any carbonation fan knows, sometimes you just want a carbonated beverage. It’s a craving that you can’t itch, so she went to seltzer to fill the void that Diet Coke left behind. This was my first introduction to seltzer. It taunted me because it smelled like Sprite or other sugar-filled sodas, but tasted awful. I was constantly trying it because I wanted to like it, but hated it nonetheless. I don’t know how it happened, but I suddenly started to enjoy it more. I think lime or lemon-lime seltzer is eventually what got me. Suddenly I was drinking more seltzer because I enjoyed it more, which led to it tasting better to me, which led to drinking more, and so the trend continues. It has now gotten to the point where I load up on seltzer before going off to college every semester. Last year I took ten cases of seltzer with me when moving in and I was just barely able to stretch them until the midway point of the semester. My friends had joked that that amount of seltzer would only get me through the first week of classes, but it could have really been an issue if I tried hard enough. 

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