From the 17th century, an anonymous writer talks about coffee:
“Coffee Collects and settles the Spirits, makes the erection more Vigorous, the Ejaculation more full, adds a spiritualescency to the Sperme, and renders it more firm and suitable to the Gusto of the womb, and proportionate to the ardours and expectations too, of the female Paramour.”
I’m too old, too impotent and too infertile to worry about all that stuff. All I know is that before my morning cuppa of Dunkin’ Donuts Regular, my attitude towards the world can be summed up thus:
Granted, the addition of coffee to my system doesn’t change my mood that much
…but I do go from murderous to simply dangerous. so there’s that.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the Keurig.
I have been addicted to “mud” for all of my adult life, around 45 years or so now, drinking at least 3-4 cups every dam day. It helps me maintain my school gurl figure. lol About 10 years ago I converted to instant as it is so much easier to prepare. We have a Keurig but to me all the flavors taste about the same. My wife uses an old fashioned (though almost new) tall, chrome electric percolator. We also have a Coleman campfire percolator for when the power goes out. Mud is a staple around here.
One of my birthday presents this year was a new stainless electric percolator, which supplies my daily intake. I like to say I only drink three cups of coffee a day, but they’re big mugs (it’s actually the whole pot, which I fill to about 10 cups). I set it up the night before, plug in when I get up and it’s done by the time I’m ready to start work. If I’m in a rush the Keurig does the job.
Pumpkin spice coffee (or any other flavor for that matter) is an abomination in the eyes of God and man.
No truer words were ever spoken. When the fall of civilization is studied in the future, the beginnings will probably be traced to flavored coffees.
That, or the Democrats’ policies after 1960.
Along with flavored coffee and funky coffee shop milkshakes the other incredible downfall of civilization and the world as we know it will be a partial result of flavored whiskey, rum, vodka and nasty other little bottles of degradation. Recently I slowed down a bit on my way back to the Scotch section of our big liquor store and noticed every candy store flavor sold in bottles with brand names I recognized and I wondered who buys this shit. Who needs banana flavored rye whiskey and vodka that is supposed to taste like brownies?
And we do like our Mr. Coffee drip every morning after throwing away out Keurig our kids gave us for Christmas one year, it is a lot cheaper and to me tastes cleaner and more like coffee.
Who?
Our beloved Millennials, that’s who.
Unable to deal with the Hard Stuff in Booze, just as much as they’re unable to deal with the Hard Stuff in Life.
As for me, before getting married I used a programmable “Mr. Coffee” and set it for 0700 – could smell that wonderful aroma (Yuban – Dark Roast) on the other side of the house and knew it was time to face-the-day.
The new wife has a Keurig but it allows me to have some Swiss Miss chocolate mixed into a large road mug of coffee.
On coffee:
Began drinking my Dad’s stovetop perk brew as a pre-teen when I had to go out in the dark world to deliver the morning daily disappointment news. The story about having to cut his coffee with a knife? Not true. We used garden shears. In the military, I liked the coffee they brewed in those oil drum size pots. After the war, I tried all manner of brewers, including Keurig. Learned early to go to a restaurant supply store to buy metal pots to replace the fragile glass ones that come with the brewer. The glass just couldn’t take the stress of my brew. Keurig’s were kinda good, but not good enough and the pods were getting too expensive. After I wore out my third Keurig, I got a cheap drip brewer, figuring it would be easier to replace when needed. The instructions call for two scoops of grounds, I use three heaping scoops. Then came the heart breaking day when my doctor told me I could only have two cups each day.
I bought a bigger cup! 32 ounces of hot, black, tar, twice each day. Thanks, Doc!
Should have just replaced your doctor.
This is the recommended action. Replacing the doctor with one who shares your vices and such goes a long way towards medical advice that complements your lifestyle rather than antagonizes it. I once worked with a man who said he made an effort to find a doctor who was overweight like him. It’s gotten hard to find any who smoke, even cigars or the pipe, but I still have hope.
Though the Keurig suffices, barely, I miss the covfefe of my mis-spent youth.
The U.S. Navy has worldwide buyers for it’s own coffee beans, and operates it’s own roastery to process said beans. U.S. Navy canned coffee grounds, bought at the commissary, and brewed in an electric Corning percolator, is perhaps the finest cuppa I’ve sipped in over 60 years of imbibing the precious brew.
I can say that honestly, as I was teethed on coffee, loaded with cream, sugar and other vitamins. Just as some parents rub bourbon on a wee child’s gums, my mom’s General Practice Dr. had her make the brew so that I’d keep at least some nutrients down during those tumultuous times.
But back to that Navy coffee. The Corning electric was the key to success. It had an automatic shutoff to the percolation, at *exactly* the right time. How it knows that fails me still. But the perfect coffee never failed. Just enjoy it in the first five minutes after percolation. It didn’t keep on the warmer as good as it was perfect at the peak of brewing.
*sips Italian roast from the Keurig*
It’s good. But it’s not AS good.
Alas, it is always thus: “I have too much blood in my coffeestream.”
Jim
Sunk New Dawn
Galveston, TX
On the submarines I was stationed on, we had what was affectionately known as “Engine Room Coffee”.
First, the coffee itself was supplied via the system Jim described above. On the boat, we had two main coffee machines. The one in the crew’s mess was a big commercial Bunn coffee maker that had two brewing stations and four warming stations. (There was no such thing as decaf back in those days.) Back in the engineering spaces – usually in machinery two – there was another Bunn coffee maker that had one brewing station that doubled as a warmer. This was the source of “engine room” coffee. Now, how to make it at home:
First, you brew a normal pot of coffee. Then you add a pinch of salt – because even on a nuclear submarine, with an almost unlimited supply of electricity and steam, the evaporators never get 100% of the salt out of the water. Then you add a drop of chlorine – because the doc, who was in charge of the potable water chemistry, always put too much chlorine in the water rendering its taste like that of a swimming pool. Then you add one drop of diesel fuel. This gives it that special sheen that identifies it as engine room brew. And last, but not least, you must allow the brewed coffee to sit on the warmer for at least half a day. This gives it that special texture and “aged” taste. (…kind of like leaving Scotch in the barrel for 12 to 14 years.)
Good stuff. It’ll put hair on your chest.
This is what happens when you allow squids to live.
Spoken like a Marine.
Psst.
Don’t tell him that the Marines – both US and Royal – are nothing more than the Navy’s infantry.
(((PING!)))
Roy – Who is running and dodging as our host and a few guests take pot-shots at him.
No, the Navy had its own infantry. I have my dad’s Bluejacket’s manual, and it includes chapters on Naval Infantry and the use of the M1903 and Infantry carts.
That must be the difference between the engine room brew and the wardroom brew. My Scoutmaster was a swabbie and he made “Navy Coffee” Always grounds from the PX. Salt, yes, on the warmer, yes He was on a minesweeper in the Korean War. He never mentioned extra chlorine Or diesel fuel (we had some mothers whose sons would have complained to them in a New York minute if he even mentioned diesel fuel).
Well, the wardroom was a bit more hoity-toity than mere engine room snipes.
Roflmao!
He did talk about how the candy bars the ship PX sold all tasted like Lifebuoy soap, since that was the soap that would suds in seawater and the only source of candy bars was from the Lifeboat Rations. THOSE could be ordered and received. He said that after the third chocolate bar normal chocolate tasted funny.
We old surface navy sailors (better known as “targets”) substituted bunker oil for diesel but the result was pretty much the same. When I was 19 I could drink that stuff on the mid watch (2400 – 0400) and then go back to sleep for an hour or so before it was time to get up and face the new day. Today the smell of engine room coffee would probably keep me awake for a week. On a slightly different but related note, I always remind my friends who served in the Corps that Marine stands for My Ass Rides In Navy Equipment. Its all good.
Hydraulic oil works too.
Worst coffee I ever had was when I was stationed at Ft. Devens, Massachusetts in the mid 1960’s and at the end of my advanced training I was sent through a ten day Jungle Warfare Tactical Training Course (TTC) where we lived in pup tents on the snow and ice wearing Korean War winter field gear eating c-rations that were dated from the mid 1950’s. Now for the coffee, there was a huge, heavy, stock pot several feet across and about three feet high that set on a propane burner, it was going the day we arrived and never turned off when we left, 24 hours per day. The protocol of the In the Field coffee was to take the instant c-rat coffee you received with your meal and dump a packet in the pot for every canteen cup of coffee we dipped out, when the water went down several inches there were jerry cans of potable water to bring the level up so it was kind of like an eternal flame coffee pot. Worst tasting stuff ever but since it was below freezing and holding a warm canteen cup of coffee in our hands smoking our free GI cigarettes we received at every meal it was a better than nothing experience. Our motto going through all the escape and evasion, lack of sleep and only getting mild frostbite, was that the only way to measure morale was by the amount it decreased day by day, good coffee might have helped. Of course in the long run the course did teach me how to be very uncomfortable and then appreciate things like decent food and heat and being clean for most of the rest the 50 plus years of my life.
Ah coffee. Something I can now only enjoy vicariously. I think I’ve had about 3 cups in the last 12 years. But that aroma!
de-caf is the devil’s work! Flavored coffee isn’t any different. Starbuck’s tastes burnt to me.
We use a Cuisenart grind and brew. we have gone through a few. we also have a keurig that we use from time to time. we get pods for Christmas from a relative that usually lasts us quite a while. The coffee we use is 8 O’Clock coffee whole bean.
what brands do you guys use?
JQ
I have never had Starbucks coffee that did not taste burnt. At first I thought it was their Italian Roast, but every other blend I tried had that same quality. The daughter of a friend worked at one store and couldn’t explain that to me. Supposedly they would dump out the coffee after only a few minutes, but I suspect there’s something else involved.
Yes! I’ve tried starbucks twice, from 2 diff locations, and both times it was burnt beyond belief. Just one small sip and I knew it was undrinkable, and medically unsafe. I’ll never try it again. Is it possible they are using some sort of impossibly hot water? I don’t know the science behind it, but is it possible for water to be like 500 degrees some how? I’ve had burnt coffee before, but the stuff from starbucks was a whole nuther level of burnt.
There’s a reason folks around here call it Charbucks. They over-roast their beans, always have, like a fire in an old carpet warehouse.