I’m sure I can’t be the only one who’s rolled off the back of a long, enjoyable, and overly indulgent bank holiday weekend … straight into a drizzly Tuesday. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that – without doubt – I needed my caffeine jolt this morning.
I had a meeting at 8am, but couldn’t wait ’til then, so bought a coffee before I got on the train, as I wanted to read the Metro without going cross-eyed.
Then I came across this….
Look – some people are morning people, some people are not. Some people are night owls, some people are not. Some people jump out of bed full of zest and joie de vivre, some fall to the floor like a broken slinky spring.
The broken slinky spring people (that’ll be me) need their morning coffee jolt. Moreover, they need a decent morning coffee jolt, not just any old cr*p that happens to be hanging around, in an encrusted glass jar.
Six or seven years ago, I would’ve been happy with a single teaspoon of the weakest of the weak instant coffee, sprinkled at the bottom of a mug and covered with boiling water: coffee so weak (both in colour and taste) it might as well have been Bisto.
The I started working with a Brazilian art director. Decent coffee comes from her neck of the woods, so away went the jars of instant rubbish, and out came bags of filter coffee and a cafetiere.
Late nights, working on various bits and bobs, led to copious cafetieres being filled and before I knew it I was buying ‘strength 5’ bags of coffee.
I love my morning coffee (and my mid-morning coffee, and my midday coffee etc), but I cannot abide rubbish coffee. I know half-decent stuff from poor stuff now, and I know, of the coffee chains, which burn the life out of their coffee (extreme bitter taste) and which get it right.
Non-coffee people just don’t ‘get’ coffee people. They think any old stuff will do, as long as it’s mixed with boiling water. They think that half a teaspoon of Maxwell House – from a jar that’s been in a cupboard for a year – floating in a swimming pool of boiling water, has the same taste and strength as decent, strong coffee. It doesn’t: it’s insipid muddy water.
I guarantee you that ‘Thrifty’ is one of these people and that ‘cheaper and just as nice’ is as described, above i.e cheaper, but tastes of nothing and is as potent as a gnat bite’
So, caffeine fiends, raise your mugs: Caffeine fiends unite!