COFFEE

I cannot tell you who wrote this, but I found this and other great things at everything2.com. Thank you whomever you are.

Coffee, have I ever told you just how much I love you? I may have murmured in the heat of the moment how grateful I was that you alone were there for me, but I've never specifically set time aside for just the two of us, just to let you know just how special you are.

Coffee, you excite me. When I'm at my lowest, the thought of holding a steaming cup of you is the only thing keeping me from falling asleep standing up. Even when I can't stand the burned, stale mess the Sugar Shack makes of you, just sitting in there, your aroma wafts over the counter, putting a spring in my step and some small measure of alertness in my apathetic gaze. The smell of coffee and donuts sticks in the seams of my hooded sweatshirt, reminding me even now of your everlasting presence.

When I finally find a half-decent mug of you in my hands, you wash everything bad out of my mind. The world is wonderful for a few minutes. There's only you and me. I take that first sip, scalding my tongue, suddenly remembering I don't even LIKE coffee, but just as quickly I forget again as warmth and caffeine and that sweet sugar rush spreads all the way to my fingertips. Ah, sweet coffee-induced bliss. There's nothing like that injection of pure caffeine and sugar, nothing in all the world. It's the best legal high there is.

And in the hottest days of summer, you're there again - confections of crushed ice and cream and sugar syrup and flavoring and that small but utterly crucial shot of very strong coffee dance in my dreams. On those rare but lovely occasions I actually find one in front of me, that decadent, sticky coolness coats my throat, refreshing as nothing else in the world could ever be.

Ah, coffee, you miraculous beverage, existing only as the least-diluted carrier form of caffeine known to man. I am forever indebted to the sheer nervous energy you've brought to my life, to the masses of calories I've burned just from my hands twitching. You brighten my days, lengthen my nights, and make my life just that much more energetic. I love you.

Painting by Currier and Ives 1881


I HAVE JUST DISCOVERED THAT I WROTE A PIECE VERY SIMILAR TO THIS BACK AT THE END OF 2007. BUT THE PICTURE IS NEW. I DON'T KNOW IF IT'S THIS TIME OF YEAR THAT GETS ME THINKING SERIOUSLY ENOUGH ABOUT COFFEE THAT I WANT TO WRITE ABOUT IT OR WHAT. I KNOW THAT SEEING THIS PICTURE OF THE GUY DRINKING COFFEE GOT ME GOING THIS TIME. BUT I THINK I WILL HAVE TO SPEND A LITTLE TIME RESEARCHING SO I DON'T START REPEATING AGAIN AND AGAIN. SORRY.

In my adult life I seem to be engaged in an on and off again relationship with coffee. I picked up the quasi-habit when I entered the military. I remember I preferred it black because I did not like the taste when I added canned evaporated milk to it, and that's all they offered. It wasn't a coffeehouse. (It just occurred to me; isn't evaporated milk a sort of oxy-moron? If milk is evaporated then there is nothing there? Oh well that's something for later maybe.) Later whenever I ordered it out on the economy as we used to say, I would receive strong coffee, weak coffee and sometimes great coffee. After a while I became confused (easy to do) and just decided to switch to tea. I stayed with tea, well forever, but in recent times I have also redeveloped a taste for coffee. I never have gotten into the Starbuck, double this, add that fad. I may be a little too dumb to remember all the slang and buzz words, so I just stick to the standard stuff and add a little coffee-mate and a small amount of sugar. Now I know that would set 'real coffee drinkers' into shivers of repulsion but to each his own I guess. My wife has found a couple brands I like better than the others. Two of my favorites are Bob Evans coffee, and Duncan donut coffee, yes they sell it by the package to take home. I still drink tea also, so I guess I will go through life swerving back and forth from the coffee lane to the tea lane. It could be worse, it's not alcoholic or very expensive.

COFFEE

I'm not a gourmet, nor even a cook. I seldom ever have to cook anything as my wife holds down that job just fine. So for me to be writing anything about food is surprising even to me. But equally surprising to me is that I have developed this craving for coffee (again) after all these years. Sometime many years ago I became turned off on coffee of all kinds for no good reason.
Then came the Starbucks type of coffee which seemed to me to be too much trouble or indeed expense.
Untill recently that is I switched from tea to coffee, satisfied but not completely. I used to drink it black, but this time I took a liking to the coffee creamers ala coffee-mate. But still it was still not right. I took a trip to a coffee shop and bought a few different blends. I seem to have a taste for cinnamon in my blend. Since I settled on Snickerdoodle a blend of columbian coffee and cinnamon and another blend they have called Stickybun. Then I saw on television a commercial for ground coffee put out by Dunkin Doughnuts and happened to run across it in our supermarket. We picked up a pound.
Shaazamm, is that ever good. It's good even without using it as a chaser for the doughnuts. I have tried several pots of this stuff and it is the real thing.
Today my wife came across a post from WebMD saying that now they think coffee is good for you. Can you believe it. It's a marriage of my tastebuds coupling with something that's good for me.

http://www.webmd.com/video/truth-about-coffee?ecd=wnl_wnb_122707

HERE IS THE CLICKABLE FROM WEBMD.