In an old short film once I said, “Coffee, just coffee, is bitter. Coffee is just like life. But you down it, you accept it. And you enjoy that you’re still having coffee.”

And today marks six whole weeks without coffee for me. And for those who know me, I am a severe coffee snob and addict, and have been for the last three years. We’re talking four to eight cups a day, and 95% percent of the time my preferred drink is an Americano, which are shots of expresso (standard two, sometimes three) in hot water.

But coffee is more than a beverage of exceptional taste (when done right, of course. See not: Starbucks). Coffee ignites ideas, generates a never ending train of thoughts, creates moments and wonderful conversation, and reminds you of a better time.

Coffee awakens.

“Forty-two days without incident” will race down to zero, as I will enjoy a cup of coffee today. But before I allow myself to have this long-awaited moment, I want to celebrate the top five coffees and their coffee shops/roasters that I have had the pleasure of drinking.

But before I get started, I am not here with a judge list on taste, or use words like “hints of” and “aroma” or anything like that. I just know what a good cup of coffee tastes like, because I simply know what I like and what it feels like when I find it.

So, without further ado –

5. Acre Coffee (Four Barrel Coffee), San Francisco, Civic Center
http://www.acrecoffee.com

Yes, its name sounds like my last name. But that is not why this coffee makes my list. A handful of times, I’d take a 30-minute walk from work to this coffee shop through the sketchy streets of the Tenderloin. It was well worth it, even with all the used syringes and needles on the ground I trekked on.

I said sketchy, didn’t I?

4. La Boulange (Equator Coffee), San Francisco, Financial District
http://instagram.com/laboulange

This is where it all started for me, the addiction and the snobbiness for coffee, and I blame and thank (50/50) my former boss for introducing me to La Boulange and Equator. In every sense this became my everyday morning Americanos. Without it would have been difficult to function at work. It was also the coffee that broke many of my writer’s blocks and spawned the idea of getting professional haircuts again.

Because, I really like my hair now.

And the folks at the California St. location in the Financial District could not be any better. It became the place where everyone knew my name.

3. Hub Coffee Roasters (Hub Coffee), Reno, Nevada
http://instagram.com/hubcoffeeroasters

Here on a business trip, I would have never guessed that Reno-ians were master coffee makers. I vividly remember the “holy shit” that slipped out my tongue upon first sip, and the hundred of sips after were better and better throughout that entire week. It truly made those 12-14 hour work days feel a lot less daunting than they really were.

2. Fog Lifter (Blue Bottle Coffee), San Francisco, Ocean View
http://instagram.com/fogliftercafe

This is my neighborhood, down-the-street, weekend-mornings-in-my-pajamas or slacks-and-tie after work coffee shop. Blue Bottle Coffee sandwiches the nation, having bases in Oakland and Brooklyn though not much of its grace in between.

That just means, more for me.

If there is such a drink that can instantly jolt in you with a concrete feeling that the day ahead of you is going to be one of the most amazing days of your life, then Blue Bottle owns that formula.

1. Dunkin’ Donuts (Dunkin’), Fort Lauderdale, Florida +
Chicago, Illinois
http://instagram.com/dunkindonuts

Sadly, there are no current Dunkin’ Donuts locations in the Bay Area… yet. Dunkin’s plans for going going, back back, to Cali Cali (see what I did there?), however, are in the works.

I took a red eye flight for a business trip to South Beach in Florida and needed a pick-me-up upon landing. The reason Starbucks has lacked hold on the east coast market was because of Dunkin’s coffee, so I needed to try it.

This was a game changer in every sense. It gave me the pick-me-up of all pick-me-ups. I stayed awake for 36 hours and that allowed me to not only get in that 12-14 hour work day, but also witnessed my San Francisco Giants go into Cincinnati and win the first of three in a row to eventually take the series.

Because clearly, they can’t win without MY support, says every true baseball fan.

And something in that coffee of theirs – maybe it is their beans, the kind of sugars and creams they use, the specific metals of the machinery that it churns on, I really don’t know. But something in its taste took me all the way back to a time when I was a kid, when I carried zero worries and nothing else mattered other than dipping pan de sal breads in a cup of coffee with my grandpa.

And when it comes to coffee, it won’t ever get any better than that.