Plain Ole Coffee

Does anyone still drink just regular coffee?

 

I am a coffee snob. I’ll admit it.

 

I like coffee but I have certain standards.

 

It has to be good.

 

No gas station sludge. No instant. No big frozen mug of liquid that is mainly sugar with maybe a splash of espresso.

 

I like just plain ole coffee. But plain ole coffee is hard to find these days.

 

I had a break in Nutcracker rehearsal this week and it was cold outside. The perfect weather for a nice plain ole cup of hot coffee, so I went to the coffee shop.

 

Certainly they have just regular coffee that’s better than the black swill they serve at gas stations.

 

I stepped up to the counter to order and looked up at the menu on the wall.

 

Nowhere did it list just plain coffee.

 

There was cappuccino, flat white, breve, macchiato, cold brew, frappes, and a whole bunch of other drinks I could not pronounce.

 

I looked for just the plain coffee but didn’t see it listed.

 

I asked the young woman behind the counter if she had just plain coffee.

She looked back at me with an expression of confusion on her face.

 

“Plain coffee? You mean like just a cup of coffee?” she asked.

 

“Yes. Just a regular cup of coffee. You have that?”

 

“Sure,” replied, pointing to the menu board over her head. Would you like pour over, espresso, French press, cold brew?”

 

I wasn’t sure.

 

“Which one is just coffee,” I asked and the young woman snickered.

 

“They’re all coffee, sir.”

 

Yeah, whatever. I’ve been drinking coffee since middle school and none of those sounded like the coffee my mama would brew in her old, stained Mr. Coffee.

 

I asked the young woman if they just had a pot of coffee back there that they could just pour into a cup and hand it to me.

 

“Sure, but wouldn’t you like to try something a little more…. sophisticated? Maybe a frappe?”

 

Humans have been drinking coffee since the 15th century. It was cultivated in what is now Iran and first consumed by people in that region.

 

I’m pretty sure the people back then did not drink cappuccino, cold brew or frappe. When you ordered coffee, it came thick, strong and black.

 

And that was what I wanted. Strong and black.

 

I asked the woman what a frappe was and she said it was coffee and ice cream blended with ice and my choice of flavorings. I asked if they just had coffee flavor.

 

She laughed. I didn’t.

 

I assume you that she thought I was some kind of slow-witted dolt. But that has been the way my ancestors have been drinking coffee for generations.

My dad used to fill a thermos with hot black coffee and take it to work with him.

 

I think the thing held twelve cups. He would drink all of them by the end of the day. Twelve cups!

 

But the oddest method of consuming coffee was the way my grandfather did it.

 

When I was a little kid, my dad’s father came to live with us for a couple of years. He had suffered from a stroke but he was weird long before he moved in with us.

 

Each morning at breakfast, I would watch him and marvel at the way he drank his coffee.

 

He had to have a cup and saucer. No styrofoam cups or insulated mug. He was a cup & saucer man.

 

Instead of drinking his coffee like the rest of the 7 billion people on the planet, he would take his coffee cup and pour a little in his saucer. He would swirl it around and around to cool it and then slurp it from the saucer.

 

Loudly. Apparently that was a part of his strange ritual. Swirl and slurp, swirl and slurp.

 

It would drive my mother crazy. I thought it was cool.

 

I attempted to do it and just sloshed coffee all over my scrambled eggs. No slurping for me.

 

He was the same guy who would stack his food in a big pile and eat it all mixed together. Meat on the bottom. Then mashed potatoes and on top of that he would pile layer after layer of vegetables – and then cover the whole thing with gravy.

 

I asked him why he ate that way once and he said that it’s all going to the same place so what difference did it make.

 

I tried his method of stacking my food in a small tower and eating it all jumbled together. It was pretty gross.

 

But that method of swirl and sip and food stacking was nothing compared to the way he brewed his coffee.

 

Most of us put ground coffee in a coffee maker or use a single serve ‘pod.’ Not my grandfather.

 

He would take a small pot of water and put it on the stove. When it boiled, he would get a big spoonful of coffee grounds and just drop them into the boiling water.

 

After a few stirs, he would pour it into his cup. No filter. Grounds and all. Hardcore.

 

He didn’t die until his 90s so I guess ingesting coffee grounds wasn’t lethal.

The young woman at the coffee shop set my plain black cup of coffee on the counter.

 

“That’ll be $5.35,” she said.

 

I looked down at the cup. Certainly at that price, there should be some gold bullion floating on the top. This must be the world’s greatest cup of coffee.

 

It wasn’t.

 

“Would you like a shot in your coffee, sir?”

 

“A shot of what? Bourbon?”

 

“No silly… a shot of flavor.”

 

I declined. I’m pretty sure that my grandfather didn’t drink his coffee with a shot of elderberry flavor.

 

I told her black was fine and she looked at me oddly. Apparently I am the only person who has gone into the coffee shop and ordered just plain coffee with no flavor shots, steamed soy milk or whipped cream.

 

“Would you care for cream, sir?”

 

“Sure,” I said to the young woman behind the counter.

 

“Good. Which do you prefer- almond, soy or oat milk?”

 

Now I didn’t graduate with an agronomy degree but I am

smart enough to know that you can’t milk a almond tree or an oat or soybean plant. If they do have udders, they must cut those off before they show up in the grocery store.

 

“You got just milk?,” I asked.

 

“You mean from a cow?”

 

“Yeah, from a cow.”

 

“You must mean milk-milk.”

 

I tried really hard to not roll my eyes but has nobody ever told this young woman that the only place to get milk is from a mammal. And soy, oats and even almonds are not milk.

 

I poured some of that milk-milk into my cup and added a couple of sugars. Yeah, I like regular coffee but I’m not an uncultured cretin.

I

took my cup and said thank you. I almost asked for a saucer so I could ‘swirl and sip’ my coffee but I just figured that would irritate all of the other people in the shop enjoying their caramel mocha frappuccino with oat milk.

 

So, I just took my cup and left with my plain, no-frills coffee.

I took a sip and burned my tongue.

 

I guess that swirl & sip thing wasn’t so stupid afterall. Next time I go to a coffee shop, maybe I’ll bring a saucer.

 

And a cow.