Every morning when I get to my office I go through the same routine. I turn on my computer and enter the password so it can run through the boot-up process; then I walk down the hall to the break room coffee maker, move the half-filled pot of regular coffee up to the second warmer, and start a pot of decaf brewing. While I wait for the pot to fill I stand around and crack some jokes or talk about books or movies or theology, or visit the men’s room for some preemptive action, and then fill my black coffee mug (black mugs don’t have to be washed as often as other colors; in fact, maybe they never have to be washed) and go back to my office and enjoy my coffee and read my morning emails.
The first cup of coffee is the best cup of my day. I never stop for coffee on the way to the office, and if I go somewhere for breakfast to write in my journal I usually drink a Diet Coke. I drink a lot of coffee - at most about three cups in a given morning. I seldom drink coffee in the afternoons unless it is very cold outside. I don’t drink much coffee at home since Cyndi doesn’t drink it even though she often offers to make it for me.
I’ve read that people around the world drink more coffee than any other drink besides water: four hundred billion cups a year. And a cup of Starbuck’s costs $16 per gallon, or in oil and gas terms, about $672 per barrel. Even at that price, 24% of Starbuck’s customers visit 16 times a month.
People don’t drink coffee to satisfy their thirst. It’s too hot to drink quickly, it must be sipped. I guess it’s possible that with enough milk or cream or foam, coffee might become a chugalug thirst-quencher, but I don’t think so. Coffee, like tea, begs to be savored. It’s a social drink, a hospitality drink. Maybe, the fact that coffee is served hot means it can’t be rushed. It slows down the pace of life an gives us permission to talk and be together.
Most of the time I drink coffee like this: (1) during mornings in my office (usually alone); (2) in the evening when I’m reading or computing (usually someone, usually Cyndi, is with me … in fact, I seldom make coffee for myself at home, I drink it only when Cyndi makes it for me); and (3) over a lingering conversation. I also drink coffee during business meetings but that’s mostly to keep myself entertained and keep my hands busy. Like Leonard Sweet, I associate coffee with conversation, even though I most often drink it alone. If I join Cyndi at a Starbucks, I usually drink tea, because the coffee they serve is a bit strong for my taste.
Until lately.
Cyndi and I recently listened to a podcast by Erwin McManus and during sermon he talked about his love for premium coffee and why he likes it and how it should be brewed. He claimed that being from El Salvador gives him better insight into coffee; maybe he’s right. He made fun of people who prefer fast-food coffee to Starbuck’s because “Starbuck’s makes it too strong.� McManus said they’d trained their taste buds to appreciate the lowest quality and not the best, and how sad for them.
Well, I thought. What if Erwin McManus himself finds out that I don’t drink premium coffee, either? I’ve been posting my Journal Entries on a website sponsored by his Mosaic ministries, called Voxtropolis. What if McManus is bored one day and surfs around the various postings on Voxtropolis and starts reading my Journals and thinks to himself, “these are really good, maybe I’ll introduce Berry to my publisher and feature his writing at Mosaic,� and he calls me on the phone and says he wants to come to West Texas to meet me and talk about spiritual stuff and bond with me as two hip writers, and then he asks, “So where do you usually go for coffee?� What then? What will I tell him? I only drink office coffee? Meet me at Whataburger? He’ll drop me like a cheap Styrofoam cup.
So I am confessing that I’ve succumbed to long-distance peer pressure; I’ve started working on my taste buds, training them upward. I’ve been ordering coffee instead of tea at Starbucks, and I’ve added another scoop to my morning ritual when I make coffee at the office.
I still drink decaf, hoping to avoid the damaging symptoms of high blood pressure and all, and I still drink it black, without foam, or ice cream, or candy, or any other additives.
But I’m working on my taste buds, training them to appreciate higher quality and stronger flavor. Who knows, it may come in handy if I ever get that phone call from my buddy Erwin. And I’m beginning to enjoy my newly upgraded life.
very entertaining post!! thanks for the read…..skc
remember that barnes and noble was right next to caldwell music ? well, i would go in that place daily usually, twice. no coffee for me,though, me and caffeine parted ways years ago, but i would load up on drum, cycling, and architecture magazines, and water (vente). we had a water cooler at work, but it’s so much better with ice in it. they never charged me, even though i offered to pay for it, and sometimes i would buy a magazine just to not feel like a freeloader. when i got my vente ice water, i would put one of the cardboard sleeves on it and be on my way, hearing comments over my shoulder. i guess these coffee wranglers have never had a cold plastic cup sweat all over their desk, and the sleeve does the trick for that.
so on to austin i go, and the brook mays there has no cooler, but it does have a fridge, so ice, but no water. of course the tap water is much better in austin than it is in midland, but i still like the filtered variety, and the only place to get some within walking distance ? . . . . . . . twin peaks liquors, two doors down. picture our district manager driving up as i come walking out with a paper bag with 4 liters of water in it. at 10am. very nice.
so now i’m operations manager for the austin Performance Bicycle, Inc. store. here, water takes on a whole other personality. the actual water is secondary, it’s what you put IN it that matters. electrolyte replacement, endurox, accelerade ( i like that one, i’d like to have a drink that makes me accelerate, rather than endure), cytomax protein “meal in a bottle”, and of course, recovery drink mixes. like coffee, there is much debate and pulpit thumping over quality and merits of these mixes, but not much conversation happens while they are ingested. mostly suffering and heavy breathing. maybe the recoveries stir up small talk, but i’ll bet it’s minimal. i have virtually zero sugar intake, so that being a main ingredient for energy drinks, i was hard pressed to find a product that would keep me from being the only employee walking around with clear liquid in my water bottle. so i found this stuff called GU2O (O, not zero), only 4g of sugar/8oz serving, and not at all heavy and pretty palatable. if you’ve ever tried anything in the serious arena of hydration drinks (forget gatorade, or powerade) you know that lousy taste and stomach upset are common until you find the right one for you. this stuff is amazing ! all the electrolytes and whatever else is like rocket fuel ! i can’t say i know what it feels like to be revved up on 3 cups of coffee, but proper hydration must run a close second ! and i’m walking around the store with a green colored water bottle. lemon-lime, if you must know. i’m in with the hardbodies, hydratin’ and ree-latin’.
life is good. if i could just find a cardboard sleeve to fit my water bottle . . . . .
cs
Ha, nice. Yeah, I find that some of the best coffee I have is the cheap donut-shop coffee (heavily modified) each Sunday morning before our gatherings when I can stop for just a moment to read and pray. It’s definitely a drink that seems to have a knack for weaving its way into the fabric of life.