Not a Snob

I have friends who joke that I am a coffee snob. I’m not. I am simply a person who enjoys a good cup of coffee. My parents have been the same way. My parents traveled around the world, and they judged the success on the following criteria: did they like the food, did they like what they saw and was there good coffee. 

When I was young I watched my mom make coffee in a Mr. Coffee. She was known for strong coffee. Her coffee was so strong, it could walk over to you, slap you in the face, and tell you the wake up. Now, that’s a strong cup of coffee. Mom took her coffee black. My dad uses cream and sugar. When I started drinking it, I took it black, then I added sweetener and now I use sweetener and cream(soy cream if there is any). I’m sure there are coffee purists out there who are aghast that I would add anything to coffee. I know what I like though, and I have learned, there is no one way to drink a cup of coffee. 

Is there a coffee I hate? Yes - ground coffee. What a horrible thing to do to coffee! If you were to read a can of coffee, or a package of ground coffee, the contents would tell you, “100% coffee.” Yeah....and I’m George Clooney. Years ago, a friend of mine worked for a leading coffee company. She was in packaging. She told me about the amount of sawdust they put in a can coffee. The sawdust helps keep the coffee fresh.

I will talk about coffee freshness in another post. Needless to say sawdust is not well known for its freshness properties. Now it may add to the roasted quality and aroma, but in all honesty, I didn’t care. I didn’t want to drink sawdust. From that day, I buy only whole bean coffee. 

My folks bought whole bean coffee. First they got it at Kroger’s grocery, then later they discovered Starbucks. Of course they did the odd thing of putting coffee in a freezer. I will explain later why this is not too good to do to coffee. It’s amazing I grew up to have an appreciation of coffee with all that sawdust and frozen coffee I had. 

Now this isn’t to say I won’t have old ground coffee from time to time. I do, usually on a long road trip. I tell my partner Mark I need some bad coffee to slap my face and keep me awake as I drive. He looks repulsed as I drink it, but it does the job.

As I said at the start, I am not a coffee snob. I simply enjoy a good cup of coffee. Enjoying coffee is subjective. What I enjoy may not be what you enjoy, and that’s ok. What I don’t like is when people apologize for their coffee. Mark’s mom is always apologizing for the coffee she serves. I wish she wouldn’t. I drink it, and I drink plenty of it. Is it my favorite? No, but I am happy to have a cup of her coffee. 

Coffee isn’t always about the taste. Sometimes its about the experience you have with the coffee. Besides, if you like the coffee, it shouldn’t matter if I do or not. Now that doesn’t mean I won’t try to introduce you to coffees I like, or encourage you to back away from the canned coffee. I am opinionated about coffee, but no, I am not a snob.

Charlie