Friday, November 3, 2017

The Discriminating Coffee (Snob) Consumer

Coffee and Cookies -- A Marriage
Made in Heaven!
Yes, I am one of those.  I love coffee, but only the fancy stuff.  I don’t care if it’s mountain grown or good to the last drop or an instant road to romance.  The only time I will drink Folgers or Maxwell House or any of that ilk, especially if it has been brewed in a percolator, is (1) if I am having such a bad case of caffeine withdrawal that I am ready to commit murder, or (2) if there is no other coffee available and there won’t be an opportunity to sneak over to Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts or McDonald’s for the next several hours.

You are not hallucinating.  I did include McDonald’s.  Their coffee is pretty good.  I guess they figured they had better get in on the good coffee trend before all the other fast-food restaurants beat them to it.

Brewing coffee in a percolator is a sin against one of God’s great gifts to humanity, the coffee plant.  Coffee beans that have been roasted and ground deserve a better fate than having most of their flavor boiled out of them.  I used to use a percolator, but that was before I knew better.  I have repented of that sin, and I now use only a drip coffeemaker.  The one I have now even has a built-in grinder.  All I have to do to grind my coffee beans is to push a button.  Anything that makes life in the kitchen easier is fine with me.

Some people call me a coffee snob.  I prefer to think of myself as a discriminating consumer.  It sounds better.

The following chart should give you an idea of what a discriminating coffee consumer looks for:


BAD COFFEE


GOOD COFFEE


Church coffee, made in a big urn by elderly ladies


Any coffee grown in an exotic place that has a flavor so strong it would make your grandmother faint


Your grandmother’s percolated coffee


Any of the above, with half & half cream

Dunkin Donuts coffee that has been watered down by employees, so they won’t have to make a new pot so often


Any of the above, with half & half cream and cinnamon

AMC Loews movie theater coffee.  I don’t know what they do to it, and I’m afraid to ask.


Hazelnut and French Vanilla coffee, so long as the coffee that comes with the flavor is good.


The thing is, once you taste a good Vietnamese, Sumatran, Kenyan or Ethiopian coffee blend, you can find yourself hooked for life.  You will do anything to get your fix, including standing in line in Starbucks or ordering it online.  You will be compulsive about watching for specials.  When you get hold of your caffeinated treasure, you will treat it like a valuable piece of jewelry or a roll of $1,000 bills until you put it into the coffeemaker and then into your mouth.  You will keep track of your stash of coffee better than you keep track of your bank account. You will end up a spoiled, compulsive wreck.


But you will enjoy your coffee.

4 comments:

Peter said...

I tried to order coffee at the AMC at 19th and Broadway. They said they were out of coffee, and I was less than satisfied with their non-service. This was shortly after I had my wisdom tooth extracted and was worried that the popcorn would get stuck in that gap where my tooth was. Also, I didn't have my morning coffee... or my medication? I can't remember.

Kathy's World said...

Sometimes they don't have coffee at the concession bar. One or two times I have stood and waited while they made some. Most of the time they have some, though. They use a good brand (Seattle's Best), but for some reason it always tastes awful. I order it in order to get my morning coffee, because I don't usually have time to make some at home before leaving.

Great Danish said...

Hmmm. McDonalds?? I have forgone coffee just because it wasn't good enough. I must be a snob's snob in the coffee bean world. Lol

Kathy's World said...

McDonalds coffee has improved in the last several years. LOL! McDonalds probably figured they'd better make decent coffee or lose some of their breakfast crowd to Dunkin Donuts, which also offers fast-food breakfast stuff.

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