Coffee

I like my coffee strong.  Black.  Sticky.....well, maybe not sticky, but my grandfather called the coffee I like "steamboat coffee."  Because on the boat you could set your coffee mug down in a heavy sea and not worry about it sloshing out of the cup.  The spoon (if you used one for foo foo shit like sugar and cream) should be able to stand up. 

I make my coffee in the same pot that my grandmother used since the 30's or 40's.  I grind my own coffee.  It is one of my guilty pleasures.  Usually a French Roast or Italian Roast.  I make a thermos full and drink it every day.  I have a serious caffeine addiction.  When I am traveling, I bring my own ground coffee with me along with a couple coffee filters so I do not have to be subjected to Starbucks brown piss water.

I am sure some of the coffee house "barista's" or whatever foolishness the servers are calling themselves would scoff at my coffee, but I like it.

All this is leading up to my wife (who does not drink coffee) telling me that we need to buy one of these new K-cup machines.  "For what?" I ask. "I already have a coffee maker that works fine." To which she replied, "No you don't, you have a coffee pot that you put the grounds in and pour boiling water through that is older than you are."  "So what?  It works.  It makes good coffee.  And I like it!"  "But you never wash it...you only rinse it out and wipe it out, and it takes up space on the stove and whatever you make but don't drink gets poured down the drain."

Ok, she is right about the undrunk coffee being poured down the drain.  My grandmother likely would faint dead away if she knew I did this.  She would put the left over in a jar and either re heat it or pour it over ice....not me.  I also knew her to spread out the used grounds on a cookie sheet when she was running short of coffee and set the sheet on the woodstove to dry out so she could use them again the next day mixed with the little fresh she might have left.  Not me.  My used coffee grounds go into the compost heap....and most of you thought I was not "green."

Back to the gadgetry.  Against my wishes she went out a bought one.  Along with an assortment of coffee including some French and Italian roast samples.  She also bought some tea, hot chocolate and hot cider cups (I am realizing this was the real reason she wanted it).  I came home from work last Friday to find it on the table.  A sleek looking plastic concoction with water on the side and buttons and a touch screen like my POS IPad.  My grandmother's coffee pot and the tea kettle I boiled the water in were no longer on the stove but put away in the cupboard under the counter.  In addition to the coffee samplers she bought a refillable container so that I could use my own fresh ground beans.  Sounds great right?  Very thoughtful right?  Ha!  The fucking thing would only work on cups made by the manufacturer...most of what she bought would not brew.  After checking out the internet, there are several cheats that I discovered, so all was not lost for my wife...until.....I tried one of the coffees she bought.....paint thinner with a hint of burnt motor oil (and I happen to be an aficionado when it comes to burnt motor oil).  I tried the refillable cup with my own coffee...I could not pack enough in it to make the coffee as strong as I like it...to top it off, what a mess and pain in the ass.

Sunday morning, I got grandma's coffee pot out of the cupboard and drank my tar while my wife sat sipping on a hot chocolate...which was her purpose in buying the damned machine in the first place.