Coffee

My last entry featured coffee, and I want to expand on the subject.

Despite being from this green and pleasant land (mostly English with a smidgen of Welsh tainting my DNA), I abhor tea in all its forms. In the great words of Garfield, "ptooey".

I'd rather drink vending machine-strength coffee (and unfortunately do - work kindly let us have a cornucopia of free drinks) than taste a drop of the contents of Beelzebub's bladder. Two important factors inform my opinion of coffee: caffiene and the strength of coffee.

The subject of caffiene regarding coffee is short and sweet. Decaffienated coffee is an abomination. What's the point of drinking decaf when I feel the main USP of coffee is as a stimulant. You may as well drink water. Yes, I know people like the taste, myself included, but the caffiene content is one part of the main triumvirate of coffee, along with taste and strength.

Decaf is for pansies.

The strength of coffee is uppermost in my mind when considering this ambrosia of beverages, and can be described in four words.

The Stronger The Better.

Going back to where I admitted to drinking vending machine coffee, I need to defend myself. I've never had a coffee from a vending machine, free or not, which hasn't tasted (and in fact, was) was weak as gnat's piss and the same colour too. Ptooey. I like to think I've solved the problem.

First I need to tell you my employers kindly grant us two breaks a day (morning and afternoon) in addition to lunch. One break consists of ten minutes. This gives one 720 glorious seconds with which to do as one pleases, within reason. Get one's nicotine fix (not for me, thanks), answer nature's call* or treat oneself to refreshments, both food and drink. Oh joy!

I've discovered it's quicker to source two servings of vending machine coffee than to wait for the kettle to boil. However this leaves me with the problem of two steaming cups of gnat's piss.

Fear not, dear reader! I have solved this conundrum! Decant the two cups of liquid into one large mug and stuff in a good deal of (company-paid-for) Nescafé instant granules. Stir briskly before returning to one's desk in a manner best described as smug.

However, instant coffee pales in comparison to the joys of fresh coffee.

Sweet nectar of life, to quote a crab from Pixar's output.

To this end, I keep a 2-3 cup Bodum press at work together with a bag of Sainsbury's Finest grade five Costa Rican ground coffee. This is a treat for me, reserved for when I've got my act together of a morning and arrived at the office with plenty of time to spare, with which to bother brewing up a mug of hot heavenly glory.

This is not the end of my waxing lyrical, for there is a couple of extra hurdles to overcome where I work, before the end is in sight. One is milk.

Oh, how I'd love to be able to savour a mug of coffee in all its black goodness, but I feel I am acutely sensitive to the bitter tasting refreshments in life, and as such have to have some dairy in my drink. A splash of semi does the trick, taking the edge off the brew, preventing my face from collapsing in on itself like a fleshy black hole.

But my place of employ is haunted by Milk Monsters. Those colleagues of mine who snaffle all the milk the evening before, as they work into the wee small hours. A curse on thee! A curse!

The solution: Coffee Mate.

Never again will I have to forgo the darling drink again! (Unless my brain plays a trick on me and makes me forget to stock up when I run out. Dang it.)

The other hurdle is sugar. I was born with the sweetest teeth this side of Charlie Bucket and must have sugar in my coffee. There is a sugar jar placed in each small kitchen of the office, and each brims with crystals of Silver Spoon's finest white sugar. However, the aforementioned Milk Monsters like to make merry with the Teaspoon Terrors, those fiends who make off with many of the teaspoons secreted throughout the building. This means the sugar pots get liberally sprinkled with coffee granules over time.

Oh, and you see I wrote white sugar? Not in coffee, dahlink. It's just not the done thing! So nestled with my Coffee Mate, is a tub of glorious brown sugar cubes, adorned with two vanilla pods for a modicum of tantalising extra flavour.

I know how to spoil myself! Dear reader, coffee rules!

*I'm not saying we are banned from conversing with Mother Nature outside of our allocated breaks.