As do I - but I started with cream and sugar. I quit using cream and sugar both because black coffee is easier and because I try to drink mostly unsweetened beverages.

But not everyone follows our example, and that's really the point. (I'd probably edit to make it more clear, but that time has passed)

I wonder if black coffee, which is objectively worse tasting and harder to drink, has something to do with the drinker accepting that it's no longer a social thing but now just feeding an addiction/self-medicating. So taking the 'pill' straight becomes a practical choice.

I object to the word "objectively" there. Subjectively to you it is worse. I can't stand coffee with sugar. It's just a sugary drink, not coffee. I drink coffee either black or with a bit of milk - not coffee cream. Coffee does not taste bitter to me. Grapefruit on the other hand I cannot stand. I'll spit that out right away. I would say grapefruit is objectively the worst thing you can eat, yet I have to accept that it's definitely subjective as some people eat it without blinking an eye.

Same goes with sour. I love sour stuff and things I drink and eat that are perfect, you might find "objectively too sour", while it's really subjective.

I don’t think so. There’s different types of coffee. More bitter, more acidic. I do drip coffee at home. I tend to lean to the bitter more than the acidic.

If I go to a cafe and it’s done by an expresso machine then I get it with milk. As sometimes I can taste when they haven’t cleaned the machine in a while and it bothers me. Milk masks the bad beans or unclean machine.

Be honest - milk does a lot more than that. Changes the drink entirely.

Sure. But doesn’t change the fact that for me, when you have good beans, black coffee is much nicer without any added milk or sugar.

When you use cheapo beans from Starbucks or the super market, it’s difficult to make good tasting black coffee. So making it with milk makes it drinkable.

Sure it does. But perhaps you underestimate the serious variety in coffee (and that folks still drink decaf). I've purchased a coffee advent calendar the last 3 years from a specialty coffee roaster here in Norway. 24 different coffees to try.

And let me tell you, they aren't all bitter. If I did a blind taste test, I'd swear some of these were teas. Some are more of the taste I'd expect from black coffee either here or the US, sure. But wow, is there variety.

> I wonder if black coffee, which is objectively worse tasting and harder to drink

This is quite literally a matter of personal taste. There's nothing "objective" about it.

Quite literally a matter of chemistry and digestion.

Bitter or acid are univerally recognized as objectionable. Sure as spice in another dish they can do something. But that's not how they work in coffee?

> Bitter or acid are univerally recognized as objectionable

That isn't remotely true. If it were no one would eat dark chocolate or sour candy.

> But that's not how they work in coffee?

Also not true. While you might not personally appreciate it, coffee is far more complex than just "sour" and "bitter".