By OmbudsBen
I’ve known a lot of women who rely on coffee for ignition. A kind of starter fluid, rise and grind. In my experience, it’s enough to draw a tenuous gender distinction, so long as I draw it carefully, or at a safe distance. Of course coffee can be starter fluid for men, too, but in my family the percolation prerequisite (the perc perk?) is less dire for men. We’re early risers by nature. As a kid I was a morning paper boy and would no more have dreamt of having a jolt of coffee first than sticking a fork in an electrical socket.
It was different for my mom, who wakes like a tightly closed flower and isn’t going to open up until she’s got a little boost of caffeine running through her veins. Hoping for the best perhaps, but caffeine-fortified for the worst. I grew up in a medical household where one of the jokes was that the first IV of the day should be run from the coffeemaker upstairs to our mother. She might have tried it, too, but as she was the only one trained to start an IV, she wasn’t taking any chances with the rest of us. Not without having a cup of coffee first.
We brewed ours like everyone else did, out of an aluminum canister labeled “coffee” with a black plastic lid and kept on the kitchen counter next to three others for flour, sugar, and salt. After Mom had her first upon rising and most of us had a cup with breakfast, we were good to go, and I don’t think we gave coffee much thought after that. It was, at most, break fluid. You complained if it sat on a burner too long and cooked down to the consistency of 30 weight oil, but none of us ever thought to ask whether our beans came from Guatemala, Kenya, or Sumatra.
I now live among people who believe that coffee is more than just a plant, a product of agriculture. One of them told me that the word bean doesn’t do the fruit of the coffee plant justice. Beans are kidney, pinto, lima, and string. The elixir of coffee is finer stuff, more powerful; it is morning’s complement to an evening’s cocktail.
My grandfather would have scoffed at distinguishing coffee as separate from beans. He was a farmer before managing a grain elevator, one of the gray prairie spires that gather our corn, wheat and oats. His simple linoleum-floored office, with metal furniture and desk, kept coffee simmering on a burner, as a social gesture for local farmers. It was a place to do business as well as share a cup. They’d formed a cooperative, and I imagine sharing a pot of coffee was an extension of that, discussing the price of commodities and the events of the day as they sipped thin coffee. They were a dry-humored bunch of leather-skinned old farmers who told jokes about each other, and who grew the grain that may well have gone into sandwiches you’ve eaten.
So their coffee was more a social beverage than a starter fluid, meaning what they drank was weak by our standards. I suppose that way they could sip it frequently during the day. Or maybe after a few hours of cooking down on the burner it wasn’t too lethal, I’m not sure. But Grandpa wasn’t fond of thick stuff. My great-aunt Florence, on the other hand, favored a potent pot. “That Florence,” Grandpa said, “brews a cup of coffee you could stand on.”
Florence, I believe, resented the notion. I never heard Grandpa say it around her, but she complained about thin restaurant coffee to me once. “Just a spot of cream I added,” she groused as an aside, “and the whole cup turned white. It was too thin for cream. What that coffee wanted was milk.”
I left home as a young man, moving to a distant city, where the notion of coffee as sensory experience had escalated far beyond the kitchen counter canisters of my youth. My peers debated refrigerated or frozen, bought fancy grinders and coffeemakers that ground beans just before brewing, and they considered the qualities of foreign beans like the French discuss wine. My coworkers debated which vendor purveyed the best coffee; one disgruntled employee in accounting vehemently refused to drink the trendiest blend, a pungent brew he likened to the odor of camel droppings. (How did he recognize the scent?)
The topic of office coffee gathered so much steam we had a mini crisis over the cups, and I wrote a humor piece, called “Coffee Muggings,” for our office newsletter:
It’s Monday morning, and after the week’s first crawl to the office you’re approaching your goal – a cuppa hot coffee. But just as you near caffeine paradise, good humor is snatched from the jaws of java heaven as your very own coffee cup, the one your lips are accustomed to, is nowhere to be found. It happens, and there’s nothing to be done except snap at your boss or snarl at your secretary, or maybe blame Housekeeping and plot revenge. People seem to fall into two distinct camps on this. Some, like joyful beagles, go through life befriending all, eager to share any old coffee cup they have. For them, the trauma of separation from one’s coffee cup elicits nothing more than knit brows and a quizzical smile. Others are like Greyfriar Bobby, the Scottish terrier loyal nigh unto death, and a coffee cup is a treasure, a true friend lost in the moment of need.
This is a friendly plea from the terriers to the beagles. A number of cups are “missing in action” and the woeful howling emanating from our kitchen some mornings is a sorry sound. If you haven’t a cup of your own, please use a plain tan cup or one of the unclaimed castoffs in the far left cupboard. It may save on churlish morning manners – some bites can be worse than their barks.
And that was just about the cups, the collection of motley travel keepsakes from the Grand Canyon or Wall Drugs, South Dakota. Cups with heat-sensitive logos where the Phantom of the Opera would appear or some corporate logo would be revealed promising a solution to our temp employee needs, until the heat-sensitivity wore out and the poor phantom lost his disappearing act, looking a little bit sheepish.
Stay tuned for “Coffee Rorschach – Part 2,” where the author talks about the perils of caffeinated vs. non-caffeinated dating, his coffee habits, and how he prefers his coffee today.
About the author: OmbudsBen once traveled to the island of Java in Indonesia and ordered a “cup of java, please.” His traveling companion was quite amused by the blank stares the request drew, everywhere. While the Javanese are familiar with the term hamburger, and our word catsup comes from their word kecap, if they use slang when ordering a cuppa joe, it does not involve the word java.
Since then, he has met with similar rebuffs involving Vienna sausages, French fries, and Chinese fortune cookies. He found some consolation in a Belgian white ale. You can read more about him by clicking here.
You have almost managed to convince me that I should like coffee. Or at least give it another try just so I can join the Coffee Cabal.
I’m looking forward to Part 2. Your wit and writing are engaging, interesting, and you made me laugh more than a few times (which startled the kittens who are now bouncing around like it’s play time).
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I love your sense of humor as it comes out in your writing. You have captured the essence of “the coffee” experience and evolution. I can’t way to read part two.
I like the way you have woven coffee into the multi-generational experiences in your life. It remains the constant even though your experience with it changes. Nice transition tool.
As I get older I find that I have become more of a “coffee snob” and like my coffee fresh and strong (or was that my women, I tend to get those two confused at times). Somehow my son, at 12, is able to make coffee the way I like it without any prompting or direction for me. I am not sure how he did it but it is nice when he offers to make coffee or brings me a cup in bed.
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But just as you near caffeine paradise, good humor is snatched from the jaws of java heaven as your very own coffee cup, the one your lips are accustomed to, is nowhere to be found.
I’m wondering if you worked with some of the same people I used to work with. This was at the University of New Mexico. Jimmie, a coworker, once blew a gasket when he discovered that another coworker, Joanie, had washed out JImmie’s coffee cup. Apparently, Joanie noticed the inside of the cup was almost black with coffee stain. Unbeknownst to her, that blackness was like a patina, something that secreted a secret flavor to Jimmie’s coffee. I had never seen this man get mad, but he was screaming at Joanie over the washed cup. He left it in the office kitchen by accident, and it had not been washed apparently for years.
I just have to add that Jimmie had horrid breath, the kind that you could smell without him even opening his mouth. After I saw the blow-up with the washed cup, it made sense why Jimmie had halitosis.
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I like your description of your grandfather and the way farmers bonded over weak coffee. The coffee didn’t seem to matter as much as the bonding. And drinking so much of it, I bet it was fine that it was weak!
At the Minnesota State Fair this year, Liz and I made a pit stop at the Farmers Union tent. There was a polka band and all these old farm implements hanging from the ceiling. It was cool in the August heat and had a different feel than the rest of the Fair. I really liked it in there. We stayed quite a while. But the Farmers Union coffee in this case was strong!
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Robin, I’m not sure you should get on the caffeine rollercoaster. Many people, including some of my coworkers, are very happy going through life without caffeine addiction. In fact, maybe I should write: save yourself!
How do you feel about tea?
R3: I know numerous people with very strong opinions on coffee. It’s almost bewildering to me. In fact, someone today was telling me about roasting their own and how green coffee beans (pre-roasted), will apparently last years and remain flavorful. He felt that, in a post-apocalyptic scenario, having a stash of green coffee beans would be invaluable.
“Think of what a cup of coffee would be worth then,” he said.
I’d never thought of it before. What would I most want, post-apocalypse? I’m thinking a boilermaker, personally, but I can see how after a few days a strong cuppa joe might be nice.
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yb: that cracked me up. In the early 70s I got sent to the Great Lakes navy base north of Chicago as part of a high school newspaper editors junket. (The Navy sent a bunch of us on a free trip so we would write about great career opportunities in the military. I’ll reserve comment on that.)
As such, a recruiter picked me up and drove me to Minneapolis, where we all got on a bus. The recruiter gave rides to a couple guys traveling home on furlough, one of whom described that very scenario on a boat.
They had taken some officer’s coffeecups and scrubbed out this fabled “patina” you write of. In secret. As a prank. Like someething you’d do at Halloween.
I’ve thought about it since — what a bizarre thought. I look at my office coffeecup, after a few days with the rings of dried coffee, and think — the process has begun.
If I were an officer in the navy, this would be prestige.
One more reason to remain a happy civilian, I guess.
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QM:
Nothing’s sacred, any more.
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yb and ombudsben,
The talk about not washing your coffee cup reminded me of a man I would see monthly in a meeting with a coffee cup that was almost black inside. It intrigued me but left me with this secret desire to sneak into his office and clean his cup.
Later I saw somewhere in the internet ether that this was something people do to add to the “coffee experience”. Although for me it went against convention because one cup of “burnt” coffee would cause the subsequent cups to taste slightly burnt too.
Today I found this interesting webpage – http://www.talkaboutcoffee.com/does-coffee-cup-affect-the-taste.html regarding this exact subject. It must be true because their tag line for the page is “All you need to know about Coffee”
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Delightful piece. Gave me a chuckle.
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R3, interesting site. I’m completely with them about how plastic or styrofoam affects flavor. Not so bothered by paper (or cardboard).
And don’t hold back on your urge to cleanse that coffee-soiled cup! Strike a blow for coffee flavor! just be sure you’ve got a good escape route.
thanks, Amuirin, am glad you enjoyed it.
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ben, this line – “Think of what a cup of coffee would be worth then,” – reminds me of when salt used to be a most valuable commodity in what might be termed Biblical times. And the price of gold that fluctuates so much, not to mention gas. It’s interesting to think about what we value in what historical time period.
Post-apocalypse? I think I’d put in a call for a couple of angels. Or a monastery. Water might be good.
ybonesy, your Jimmie comment reminded me of that Seinfeld episode on this guy, Jimmie, who always referred to himself in the 3rd person, even when he was dating Elaine. Halitosis Jimmie is scary. 8)
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LOL. Halitosis Jimmie!
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R3, that’s a cool link. I just had a moment to read it. I’m happy to say, my favorite coffee mug is a stainless steel (the 2nd best) one I bought in Jitters in Duluth one Fall when I was visiting Hawk Ridge.
And I bought Liz a porcelain mug (#1) that is so cool from the ABQ airport on one of my trips from Taos. It’s from Black Mesa Coffee Company. I love both of those mugs. Otherwise, I use a Guthrie Theater mug around the house.
I fall into the second camp ben mentions – my coffee cups are my treasures. I’m a coffee mug freak. Anyone else have favorite cups or mugs? Come on, fess up.
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ombudsben – this was a terrific read. I have been on the coffee treadmill for over 45 years not. My parents drank Turkish coffee when it was available, and ersatz when it was not. I spent 14 years as a teacher drinking hideous staff room coffee. When I worked as a studio assitant at an art college, one of my jobs was to make break coffee for the instructors and students. I made coffee that a spoon could stand up in, and the students were on a caffeine buzz for the length of a day in studio, boy were they ever active – charged almost.
In a post-apocalyptic world, I’d be content with water that did not taste like dreck, maybe also the ability to heat said water. The Japanese drink Barley tea, probably other less sophisticated cultures found ways of making beverages from a variety of infusions. Coffee is our current sacred social brew, but its time will also pass. G
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Great post! I am a coffee addict!
My dad owned a Rexall Drugstore in the 1970’s and 1980’s. Even after an “efficiency expert” consultant recommended him to remove the soda fountain, he kept a restaurant Farmer’s Bros. (ironic, eh?) coffee maker near the pharmacy. He put a long table and folding chairs by the coffee maker so his “regulars” would still have a place to hang out. Near the coffee maker was a Folgers’s coffee can, the “coffee kitty” where the coffee regulars would put in their donations. My dad had nearly two thousand dollars in nickels, dimes, and quarters. There were even quite a few half dollars, and Eisenhower silver dollars. I know, because I rolled all those coins.
I am an international school teacher working in Venezuela. Venezuela has great coffee. Its very smooth and tasty. Unfortunately you’ll probably never see Venezuelan coffee on US shelves outside Miami, because it is a minor industry here. Oil is king.
I love my school coffee mug. It is a standard “Love’s Travel Stop” Thermos brand travel mug; the type with the tight fitting lid. I love this mug because 1.) It keeps my coffee warm for at least an hour or so. 2.) I just like looking at it. It reminds me of my travels back and forth across the West and southern tier states. I always stop at Love’s for gasoline and bad truckstop coffee (and maybe little chocolate donuts).
I look forward to your next installment.
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BTW, I do have a favorite camping mug too. This mug goes with me on all camping trips and bicycle tours. It is one of those blue speckled porcelain coated tin cups. It has the shape similar to the classic stainless steel Sierra cup, but has way more character. More old West cowboy-like. I bought it in the summer of 1981 in Delores, CO when I was 20 years old. I was on my big bicycle tour from Mexico to Canada. My plastic Arkansas Razorback mug just cracked all to bits and I was desperate. Now my porcelain mug has just the right chips and character after 26 years of off and on use.
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I like your Mom’s coffee attitude. Smart woman, that Mom…and nicely played out story.
Whether you like the taste of coffee…or not…the aroma of a fresh, steamy brew winding through a room is Heaven on earth.
Pure Kona (not the blend) is the smoothest, most sultry coffee I’ve ever had with absolutely no bitterness…straight up black.
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I prefer tea:)
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Venezuelan coffee is superb, but the best coffee I’ve tasted is from Yemen (where coffee started). This Yemeni coffee is unbelievable!
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I can vouch for Venezuelan coffee.
On mugs: I have four of the same type I like. It’s partly the shape — they’re like a normal mug bug ever so slightly taller and more narrow at the base, but not one of those really tall mugs (coffee goes cold in those ones). Partly about the feel: smooth, warm. Partly about the look: each is in a different color. I buy my mugs from an Albuquerque coffee roaster called Whiting & Co. It’s family-owned, and they pick the best mugs for the best coffee. I often give coffee mugs as gifts to Jim and vice versa. Not this year though; amazingly, we didn’t lose or break any of the five he and I got last year.
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QM, yes, and also to think about what has value. The guy I was talking to is prone to discussing post-apocalyptic scenarios, so it all comes with a grain of salt — whatever salt is worth. *smile*
He told me to hold on to my brewing equipment. “Remember, they never kill bakers, brewers or distillers,” he said. (Eeeek!)
yb, “Halitosis” never an adjective you hope to hear appended to your name or those of your loved ones is it?
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Re your question, QM, on cups — for years I did have certain favorite cups. Especially at prior jobs — there was a beige cup with simple, pleasing Japanese bamboo design on the side which was my office cup for years. But now it resides in the back of a cupboard, as a sort of memory of that time.
Even though our cupboard overfloweth, I still pick up coffeecups as travel keepsakes. And you know, when I pick them up to use, I still do remember the trips, so it works!
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Suburbanlife, your thick coffee sounds scary! My wife would probably like it, as she always favored a thicker cup than I did.
mimbresman, I love your story about all the coins. I had a paper route and kept all the silver I got in change — it hadn’t passed entirely out of circulation, then. Farmer Bros! Had forgotten that brand.
anuvuestudio, you’re so right about the smell of coffee — it even has an optimism, a hopefulness to it.
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ben, I buy cups as travel keepsakes, too. (In fact, when I moved in with Liz last December, she almost fell off her chair when I opened my box of all coffee mugs. “Hmmm. I wonder where we’re going to put those?” she said, quite politely, I might add.) Well, let’s just say, they are still boxed up. I haven’t taken them out yet. I need to get rid of some of them!
The last mug I bought was for Liz from the Waffle House in Georgia last June. It’s just the right size. She likes to use it on weekends because, like ybonesy said, the coffee doesn’t go cold in smaller mugs. I sometimes use my travel mugs at home because they hold more and have lids which keep the coffee hot, too.
LB, I was going to ask if there were any “tea” people out there. I was quite surprised, when I was home a few weeks ago, to learn that the brother I was staying with preferred tea instead of coffee! He just didn’t seem like a tea kind of guy. It would be interesting to do a study and see if there is a certain kind of person that likes tea, and another kind that likes coffee. Or if it’s simply, all about the taste.
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Mug correction…looking at my school mug right now and its an Aladdin brand, not Thermos. Just a little important detail for me.
Ombusben,
My dad collected the silver as well. Every so often he’d root through the coffee kitty and might find a dime or quarter. When he died in 1997, we (my brother and two sisters) split his collection into 4ths. Most of the coins were not worth much but the weight in silver. I cashed out my portion in the summer of 2006 and got about $2000 for the weight in silver.
My dad liked that Farmer’s Bros. brand of coffee. They were a restaurant distributor.
Ybonesy,
I’ll be bringing up several kilos of coffee if you want some. I’d like to get some real fresh cacao (raw coco) but I don’t know if I will have time. The cacao region is about 2 – 3 hours (one-way) driving to the west. Anyway, that stuff is killer!
MM
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My current favorite mug is one that has the Bill of Rights on it. When you put hot coffee in it, the lettering disappears and all that remains is “Watch your civil rights disappear under Bush.”
I find that, in the office, people use their mugs to say something about themselves and they are fiercely proprietary—recent email to whole office: “To the person who borrowed the mug with Niagra Falls on it–return it and no questions will be asked.”
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LOL.
I have this oversized white cup, the kind capuccinos come in at those she-she restaurants, and I use it not to drink coffee (too wide, coffee gets cold) but to sip hot water at work. Once I get here I’ve had my two or three cafe-con-leches at home, and so I switch to hot water. My teeth can’t handle cold, plus hot water keeps me warm, and I don’t mind if it cools in the cup.
Anyway, people always comment on my cup. The guy across from me even says, I might steal that cup some day. One morning I saw a woman walking down the hall on my floor and she had my cup! I sometimes leave it at the sink by accident, and so I went running after her. I said, Excuse me, did you find that cup at the sink? She looked me like, What??? The cup, it’s mine, I told her. No, it isn’t, she told me back and kept walking.
I ran over to the sink, and guess what, there was my cup. She had one just like it. Clearly I’m starting a trend.
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MM, make the trip to get the cacao, pleazzzzzz! Bring us some!
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OmbudsBen: I’m passionate about tea. Any and all kinds of teas.
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[…] 28, 2007 by Guestwriter By OmbudsBen Yesterday Part 1 ended with my newsletter story “Coffee Muggings,” about the misappropriation of […]
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QM, you should keep your mugs. Even stashed in a box. Some day you’ll open the box and enjoy a flood of memories. Either that, or maybe: new kitchen cabinets, with glass panes — so you can see ’em all lined up in there, just waiting to harbor your favorite morning bev!
Mim, re the value of silver: patience. Just be patient — some day those old coins will be worth more (not that the silver itself comes so cheap). Besides, old coins have value unto themselves. I had an old penny minted the year Mark Twain was born — think of all the pockets that penny has been in.
Franny, I love your Bill of Rights coffeecup!
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ybDo you know the woman with the duplicate cup at all? Have you seen her since?
Robin, my wife is now quite passionate about teas, too. She had a medical condition caused by coffee, so no longer indulges in anything more than the scent.
But she’s got a whole drawer full of teas. For all occasions. And new paraphernalia. She even has recipes for her iced tea maker involving so many bags of one kind and so many of another … “Blackberry sage” is one of them.
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Hmmmmmm.
Note to self: mention to Liz, new kitchen cabinets, with glass panes — maybe I’ll keep all those old coffee cups after all. 8)
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Love coffee. It makes me want to get out of bed. Also alerts me to the error in this post. Greyfriar’s Bobby was a Ske Terrier not a Scottie.
Scottish Terrier and Dog news
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[…] Coffee Rorschach, Part I by OmbudsBen […]
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