Sunday, December 04, 2005

Coffee Snob

Somewhere along the line I became a coffee snob. 
When I lived in Colorado, I hardly ever drank coffee.  When I did I usually added a packet of hot coco or laced it with sugar and milk.  I had only been to Starbucks once, it was a novelty out there, and thought it was good but not really worth the three bucks.
Apparently all of that has changed for me.  I’ve become a coffee snob. 
On my last trip to CO, mom brought coffee with her.  Freshly roasted whole beans that we hand ground Thanksgiving morning to make some very wonderful coffee.  The smell was dramatic and the scene was like a commercial.  There was my Grandfather, in the kitchen cooking breakfast.  There’s my mom, talking to Grandpa and I and taking the freshly ground coffee from the hand grinder to the pot.  And there I was, grinding coffee.  We stood in the kitchen, well used over the years, in the half light of morning chatting and making coffee.  Really, it is what memories are made of.
But back to the issues at hand…
The next morning mom and I were not so quick to rise and Grandpa went back to his normal Folgers.  I thought, well okay.  At least I don’t have to grind more coffee by hand.  Yeah.  I’m pretty sure the coffee gave me a stomach ache.  I wasn’t completely sure, but I decided it must have been since the next morning my brother and sister-in-law also served me Folgers and I had the same reaction.  I decided then that it must be true.
I am a coffee snob.
I am so glad to be back in Washington, where the nearest coffee shop is only two blocks away.  The coffee girls are so nice and they make coffee with such love.  I have a Starbucks in my building and two just outside (one to the northeast and one to the southwest) There are coffee shops every where you go.  I was really excited for Monday morning, to know that Freeman would be getting up (it was his turn to make breakfast) and make a fresh pot of coffee using freshly ground beans.  Ah, the joy of coffee.