Coffee and Me
My 77-year-old mother still has some of the same coffee cups she had when I was a kid. Every weeknight she would make a percolator of Maxwell House for my stepfather, a journalist. He'd have a giant cup after supper and the take a thermos with him back to the newsroom as he worked on the next day's edition of whatever paper he was working for at the time. I started drinking coffee in high school, instant Taster's Choice my aunt kept beside the stove. When I graduated and went into the military, I drank both the mess hall coffee and the instant stuff they put in C-Rations and later into MREs. When I was a prison guard, the inmate's canteen sold small envelopes of instant Nescafe for a dime, and I must have had thousands of those during my tenure.
I drink my coffee black and I'm not sure if it tastes good or not. I might just be willing to put up with the hot, strong, bitterness for the effect of the caffeine. In my late 30s I met a schizophrenic poet who introduced me to longtime favorite, Cafe Bustelo, a Latin American brand of dark espresso ground beans. I've had it many ways, drip, French Press, instant and K-Cups. There's a container of it on my desk right now. I get a tad nervous and shaky if I think I may run out and I'm glad to work at a place with a coffee shop on prem.
When we spent 5.5 moths hiking the Appalachian Trail, I used an alcohol stove made from a beer can and a Walmart grease pot to boil creek and spring water to make a cup of instant coffee every single morning for 156 days, which I consumed from a collapsible cup made by Sea to Summit I'd bought at REI.
Wonder Woman's favorite coffee is whatever is ready RIGHT NOW. She is not a fan of waiting on anything. For most of our marriage, we've had a programmable pot of some sort so that the coffee would brew 30 minutes ahead of her waking time in order to be hot and fresh and ready for her. We are currently using a Nespresso machine that warms up and brews a cup in a matter of minutes. She is experimenting with electrolyte infused coffee because of course she is. As a dedicated ultramarathoner looking for nutritional advantages, she is always experimenting.
Nespresso Vertuo Coffee Pods & Capsules | Nespresso USA
Sea to Summit Frontier Ultralight Collapsible Cup | REI Co-op
Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇