Did You Know?

Did you know that if you don't put a coffee mug in your Keurig that coffee will spill onto the machine and the surrounding countertop? It can also drip all over the floor too. Or that it might take several kitchen towels to clean everything up? There's that as well.

Yep. You need to put a coffee mug on the tray of your Keurig, or you'll get a mess. Yep. It's true.

Hot Water Cloyce

There was an old friend of me Grandpa Joe, I'll call him Cloyce just to give him a name, who regularly stopped by the Shop to visit. I always liked when he showed up. It meant we'd stop work and get coffee, and typically a long coffee break as Cloyce and Joe traded true fiction.

Out coffee pot was a tall thirty cup cylinder. We only used it for hot water though, as we always had instant coffee on hand along with sugar and powdered cream for people who actually do that to their morning joe. Yet while we all made coffee, Cloyce would merely pour himself a cup of hot water and sip on it. Just like that.

I never knew why. I don't think it was because he cheap. Oh, old Cloyce was cheap, quite honestly. But it's rare that someone's cheap with another guy's largesse, although Joe would not have minded at all for Cloyce to have as much coffee as he liked. 

So, Hot Water Cloyce. To each his own I suppose.

Grandpaw's Coffee

I hate trigger warnings but, hell, sometimes they add to the joke. And this is only a joke, a family remark which actually offends both major parties when you think about it. There's a shot at a Republican and a Democrat so, you know, it's an equal opportunity put down. 

Okay, part of what brought this to mind is surely the recent rampant inflation, but whatcha gonna do? That is what it is. This is not meant as a shot at any currently active politician. Honest. It's only a family story.

Like quite a few people in my family tree, me Grandpaw Hutchins loved his coffee. Me Mom would often remark with laughter, "Daddy used to always give us coffee, and Mom would complain, Mal (what me Grandmaw Hutchins often called him, short for his name Malachi) you can't give them young 'uns coffee!"

"It ain't gonna hurt them, Mae," he'd softly respond.

Coffee prices jumped huge during the terrible inflation in the late 1970s. Someone asked Grandpaw, "Mal, you gonna have to cut back on yer coffee ain't ya?"

He simply answered in his quiet drawl, "Hoover couldn't make me quit drinking coffee, Carter won't either."

Grandpaw was going to get his jitter juice, and no mere President was about to stop him.

Chasing Sanborn

I really don't know why, but Chase and Sanborn has become my coffee of choice. Which means of course that it's been getting more difficult to find.

For a couple of years I could rely on Ollie's Discount Stores (Good stuff cheap!) to have it. Perhaps that ought to have served as a warning. Being available in a discount place might have been a bad sign.

Cedarville Foods in Hessel in Michigan's glorious Upper Peninsula stocks it, enough so that in my trips Up North this year I bought ahead. I should be all right through 2024 as of now. But what about after?

Again, however, I don't actually know how or why I latched onto the stuff. I doubt I could pick it successfully in a blind taste test. Did Chase and Sanborn subconsciously become my Hessel coffee due to association? Maybe. Yet I don't recall where I first discovered it. It wasn't necessarily while in da UP ya know.

I'm not anywhere near sure when I began drinking it. And I know in my mind that I'll just drink something else if I never find C & S (what we mavens call it) again. I will in time forget about it. Yet I would be curious to find out exactly why I became stuck on it in the first place.

Risky Business

The Ohio Cosgriffs placed upon me a great trust. I was to take the brand new Keurig they purchased for use in our vacation home in Hessel, Michigan, and see that it worked.

It has worked quite well. But I did throw caution to the wind. Despite the warning in the handy guide which came with the unit, I did not READ ALL INSTRUCTIONS before I began making coffee. Going with my gut instincts and common sense, I set the Keurig up and put it into use all by myself.

I pray I have not violated their confidence in me. 

Old Man Coffee

One of my little pleasures in life has been getting a large coffee at the first convenient gas station or 24 hour donut shop or whatever when I begin a road trip. Then I was dinged for $2.32 at a truck stop for a 24 ounce coffee which had been $1.69 for who knows how long. I must admit the sudden leap in cost gave me a minor shock.

Consequently, on my most recent journey I grabbed a large insulated cup from my pantry and made two cups of hot java in my Keurig, as it took two to fill the mug. All the while I was quite approvingly proud of myself. Indeed, rather arrogantly proud and self satisfied.

I was using coffee which was already paid for.

I wouldn't have to stop within the first half hour of the trip. Think of the time I gained!

I was saving seventy three cents on the deal. Seventy Three cents, mind you. I'd have killed for 73 cents when I was a boy.

Who needs that fancy coffee from fancy coffeemakers anyway? Sumatran bold and Columbian supreme and Arabica dark roast, hah. I was enjoying Marty's made at home brew.

Yep. I was doing all the right things for all the right reasons. Yessiree.

Then I thought, you are becoming an old man, aren't you?

Hell, the coffee still tasted good.

Extra coffee

I like my hotel in downtown Indy. And I think it likes me.

When I returned from the WWETT show yesterday my room was cleaned, as you of course expect. Bed made, fresh towels, carpet vacuumed; all the expected luxuries the First World delivers. And beside the coffee maker were not the anticipated two but rather the makings of three cups of coffee. Real coffee, not decaf, although the two individual servings of decaf were in the tray. I assume they were the two I left from yesterday morning. They'll still be there when I leave Indy tomorrow.

So I get three cups of coffee this morning. Yay me.

But that's just between us because I'm only supposed to have two. Don't tell my doc. I'll buy your silence with the English Breakfast Tea which is also on the coffee tray.

Nah, I won't. I'm drinking that too.

Coffee technology is not (always) for me.

I stopped at a truck stop early this morning to get a cup of coffee. When I want a self serve coffee, I just want to grab a cup, hold it under a spigot, and pull the lever on top of the spigot down to fill my cup with straight, simple black coffee. They offered instead a bank of newfangled coffeemakers with all sorts of options.

I didn't like that. When I want a self serve coffee, I just want to grab a cup, hold it under a spigot, and pull the lever on top of the spigot down to fill my cup with straight, simple black coffee.

But you have about eighteen different options using the new units! Yes, but I would have to learn to use them. I don't want to do that. When I want a self serve coffee, I just want to grab a cup, hold it under a spigot, and pull the lever on top of the spigot down to fill my cup with straight, simple black coffee.

But it's fresher! Beans are ground fresh for each cup and hot water forced through them. But how unfresh is the other coffee? It can't be that bad. And when I want a self serve coffee, I just want to grab a cup, hold it under a spigot, and pull the lever on top of the spigot down to fill my cup with straight, simple black coffee.

But you can have your choice of Ethiopian this or Columbian that or Arabica whatever else. I don't care about that. When I want a self serve coffee, I just want to grab a cup, hold it under a spigot, and pull the lever on top of the spigot down to fill my cup with straight, simple black coffee.

It's quicker than them newfangled gadgets anyway to grab a cup, hold it under a spigot, and pull the lever on top of the spigot down to fill my cup with straight, simple black coffee. I like it that way when I'm on the road and time's a wastin'. Because...

...When I want a self serve coffee, I just want to grab a cup, hold it under a spigot, and pull the lever on top of the spigot down to fill my cup with straight, simple black coffee.

And that's all there is to it.

The Scotch ad

Although I do not consider myself overly influenced by ads, there was one for Dewar's Scotch from the Seventies I remember very well. It pictured a Scotsman in full kilt and asked the question, 'Do I look like I'm influenced by passing fads?'

I like that. It's not only a clever ad but it makes a fair overall point: don't be too taken in by passing fancies. By and large there's nothing wrong with them of course. But the traditional has its place, a staying power which makes it, well, tradition.

While there are for example flavored coffees which I do like and look forward to (and I certainly like to try new ones), by and large just give me straight black coffee, preferably Chase and Sanborn. Pizzas have myriad toppings anymore but as a rule I'm quite happy with pepperoni and cheese. Even where there's been genuine, significant improvement I wonder if it's all that big a deal. Cars and televisions are much better now than 40 years ago. But at the end of the day they're only cars and televisions. A good book is better than nearly anything on TV these days anyway.

So go ahead and try new things if you want. Just keep in mind that new doesn't always mean better, and that you can't beat the classics.

First things

Ah, sometimes the little things in life, and I mean the really little things, stuff we too often pass right by without a thought, are indeed the best things.

The smell of fresh coffee right after you open a new can.

The salty aroma of potato chips immediately upon ripping a bag open.

You car starting the first time, right when you've picked it up from mechanic.

The aroma of leather on a new baseball glove.

Many things happen so fast we don't think about them. But the next time you open that coffee can, take a second and enjoy that first waft of freshly ground beans. It's worth it.

Marty's perky

You've had your morning joe, haven't you? I've had mine. But what's more, I make mine differently than most of you I'm sure. I perk it.

Yeppers, I'm old school with my coffee. I've heard, though whether I believe it or not, that the drip method is better.

Not that I can taste. I've also been told that the French Press method is the best way of making your brew. Maybe so, maybe no. Yet that just sounds weird. Borderline disturbing in fact. Naw, give my perked pot of Chase & Sanborn any day.

Oh, I don't doubt that my preference is partly psychological. Me Grams always perked her coffee (okay, I suppose most everyone did before about 1970) using a glass, nine cup Pyrex percolator. I remember sitting in the kitchen and watching it work up to a boil, the hot water becoming coffee drip by drip as it brewed. She must have noticed my fascination, for our wedding gift was an exact duplicate of that large glass coffee pot.

I'm having a second cup right now, brewed from that same pot. I watched it perk the whole way too. Me Grams, she knew how to make coffee.

The jitters

Yesterday I experienced something I haven't experienced since I was a kid, if even then. I had a terrible case of the coffee jitters.
Up until about a year ago I drank coffee whenever I wanted, all day and every day. Then my doctor said I should cut down to two cups. So I've dutifully cut down, although I still generally have three cups or so each day. Before yesterday that hadn't been an issue.
Yet sitting at my computer going through e-mails and such and such, I went through four cups in an hour on an empty stomach. It didn't bother me at first, but by the time I got to my Shop I was nervous and jittery and talking a mile a minute. I know, that last symptom will draw a laugh, but I could actually hear that I was prattling on by then.
So it seems that my caffeine tolerance has gone way down. Stupid doctors.

Life's perks

You've had your morning joe, haven't you? I've had mine. But what's more, I make mine differently than most of you I'm sure. I perk it.

Yeppers, I'm old school with my coffee. I've heard, though whether I believe it or not, that the drip method is better. Not that I can taste. I've also been told that the French Press method is the best way of making your brew. Maybe so, maybe no. Yet that just sounds weird. Borderline disturbing in fact. Naw, give my perked pot of Chase & Sanborn any day.

Oh, I don't doubt that my preference is partly psychological. Me Grams always perked her coffee (okay, I suppose most everyone did before about 1970) using a glass, nine cup Pyrex percolator. I remember sitting in the kitchen and watching it work up to a boil, the hot water becoming coffee drip by drip as it brewed. She must have noticed my fascination, for our wedding gift was an exact duplicate of that large glass coffee pot.

I'm having a second cup right now, brewed from that same pot. I watched it perk the whole way too. Me Grams, she knew how to make coffee.

Perking coffee

You've had your morning joe, haven't you? I've had mine. But what's more, I make mine differently than most of you I'm sure. I perk it.

Yeppers, I'm old school with my coffee. I've heard, though whether I believe it or not, that the drip method is better. Not that I can taste. I've also been told that the French Press method is the best way of making your brew. Maybe so, maybe no. Yet that just sounds weird. Borderline disturbing in fact. Naw, give my perked pot of Chase & Sanborn any day.

Oh, I don't doubt that my preference is partly psychological. Me Grams always perked her coffee (okay, I suppose most everyone did before about 1970) using a glass, nine cup Pyrex percolator. I remember sitting in the kitchen and watching it work up to a boil, the hot water becoming coffee drip by drip as it brewed. She must have noticed my fascination, for our wedding gift was an exact duplicate of that large glass coffee pot.

I'm having a second cup right now, brewed from that same pot. I watched it perk the whole way too. Me Grams, she knew how to make coffee.

Grandpaw liked his coffee

Grandpaw Hutchins liked his coffee strong. So strong in fact that he thought instant coffee one of the greatest innovations ever, because he could brew a strong pot of Maxwell House and then add a teaspoon of instant granules to his cup to give it that much more horsepower. He must have drank two, three pots of coffee a day: no lie. He also was a quiet man who rarely if ever raised his voice. He let his actions speak for him. One day coffee, his manner, and Grandmaw Hutchin's will all came together in a profound, sublime way.

It was one of those typically hot, sticky North Carolina summer days which are well known in the south. At the time, though, all they had for cooking was a wood stove. Keeping that stove going on such days made the kitchen, indeed the whole house, tremendously uncomfortable. Finally Grandma had had enough of it. When breakfast was over, she announced that from that day forward until the weather began to cool, the stove also would be allowed to cool during the day. When the breakfast embers died, the stove would not be fired up again until it was time to make supper.

Grandpaw didn't say a thing. He simply slid back from the table, grabbed his hat, and walked out the front door. About 45 minutes later he returned with an electric hot plate. He had walked the mile to the nearest store (he didn't drive), bought that hot plate, and came home. A cool stove meant no hot coffee. He couldn't have that. Yet demanding the stove be kept burning against Grandmaw's orders, well, he couldn't have that either. So he improvised a conclusion which was satisfactory for all.

I think he handled the situation just right. Don't you?