Slaving Over the Mastery of Coffee Drinking Techniques

When I was in the sixth grade, my very much loved teacher, Mrs. Cook , would have us sing out of little books every day. One song that has stuck with me all these years, is the song "Slaves To A Coffee Cup." By that time, I had already been introduced to my first cup of coffee. I would drink it black, with no sugar. I didn't enjoy it anymore that way than the cigarette butts I would sneak to smoke outside behind the shed. I was a normal kid, and it was just the way coffee was found in the house, including the cigarette butts. It took me years after that to really find a taste for coffee, and to realize, drinking coffee was not responsible for turning my hair black.

My husband and I were sitting down together the other night, enjoying a cup of coffee. He commented on how good the coffee was, and I had to agreed. There is just something wonderfully romantic about sharing a hot cup of coffee with someone you love, after a long day. Even when you have to play the hot potato game with your cup, nothing warms your heart strings up faster. If you actually do sit down with your spouse and play the old hot potato game, stop reading, and go find the phone book. Look under "marriage counselors".

I've had the pleasure of hearing noncoffee drinkers making comments on how good a fresh pot of coffee smells. Maybe it is a long suppressed childhood memory we have of one of our favorite relatives drinking coffee that lures us towards that pot. I know my daughters have always loved coffee. I started fixing them a cup of what we call coffee milk. You take a child, add one mug, two heaping tablespoons of sugar, one half a cup of milk, one half a cup of coffee, mix until well blended. If they are just now crawling, substitute the cup for a bottle. You'll have a happy kid. I suggest that you start them off with decafe, it might help you make it through their day.

My dogs have always finished up my cups of coffee. Once I had a cat that would dip her paws into the cup and helped herself to a few drops, but it was my dogs that really got into coffee drinking. I've had to clean drops of coffee off furniture ten feet away, and scrub coffee stains out of our concrete patio. Dog tongues just have a way of spreading liquids around like water sprinklers.

I have no qualms about pulling out our mismatched coffee mugs when we have company over. They are of various sizes and colors and mostly mugs from a Christmas long past. You know the ones you keep in back of the cabinet, behind the display of your matching sets. I feel this not only personalizes your coffee drinking experience, but it also lets you keep up with which mug is yours. This way your company won't be trading lipstick colors. Not that it wouldn't be funny to see your Uncle Joe wearing fuchsia de la' crème.

My favorite mug in the house is a heavy white mug. I'll refill my cup and look with satisfaction down into it, counting the coffee lines from previous refills. Lately, I've been thinking about extending my coffee drinking time to include readings from coffee ring stains. I have actually gotten severe headaches from not drinking my daily coffee. That just proves I'm more than just a slave to my coffee. I wonder if there is a support group for excessive coffee drinkers out there?

It has always puzzled me as to why people pay four or five dollars for a cup of coffee that comes in, what some people call, a "Styrofoam cup". There's no such thing as a Styrofoam cup. What you find yourself actually drinking from, is a polystyrene container. Ok, that out of the way. For now, we will still keep to our upbringings and continue to call it a Styrofoam cup. It would take a whole lot of side tracking to convince you old timers otherwise.

To be honest, I'm guilty of being in a hurry now and then and buying a cup of Styrofoam coffee, and that's just about what it taste like. Ninety percent of the time, my cup would be cold long before I took the last sip, because I just wasn't enjoying it. Half of the enjoyment of a great cup of coffee is the feel of the warmth coming from the cup, with what I call the mug hugging hand hold. This beats the heck out of the impersonal Styrofoam jig hold. That's the jig you do that helps keep your body away from the cup as you walk. Like the coffee is going to jump out on you before you get into the car. Don't worry, Styrofoam cups are made to hold up until after you have entered your vehicle. And, what's up with those little plastic tabs that are suppose to stick in place to allow you to sip out of your cup? Whoever invented them should be dumped into a silo of coffee grounds. Those tabs never opened right and stayed put. It is very annoying to attempt to drink out of these lids and the tab pops you on the nose. This is where the phrase, "Brown nosing", originated from. No, not because of that coffee stained nose, but because well, without that lid, you're screwed. Case in point. Ever get a cup of coffee, fix it just the way you like it and go searching for the lid that fits it? You won't find it. Don't think the store clerk didn't know it was you that left her counters in a mess the last time you got coffee there, she does. Read my lips, this is why you can't find the lid to your size cup. Be nice, clean the counter up. The next time you get your coffee at her store, you can bet you'll find that particular lid size.

Another thing, they don't have "Caution, Contents May Be Hot!", imprinted on a those cups for entertainment purposes either, though some people really make you believe in this. That's just there to keep you from going to meetings with high polluting corporate lawyers, with coffee stains hidden behind their tie pins.

If driving makes it easy for you to forget you're not sporting a soft drink in your hand, just make sure you don't get use to holding your hot beverages like you would your cold ones. I once, without thinking, used the finger hug on the straw you stir your coffee with, you know, to help prop that tab thingy open. It's that index finger hug on the straw thing we do that helps our mouth find the straw in the middle of heavy traffic. It would be much safer, and wiser, to have a thumb wrestle contest, to pin your straw into submission. Don't worry about how you will look to that other driver, he's too busy trying to spit that hot mouthful of coffee out discreetly. I'm happy to say, it only took one time for me to realize how dangerous those little stirring straws are, and the smaller the diameter, the hotter the liquid is. My tongue healed up nicely by the end of the week, thank you.

That brings me to those coffee travel mugs. I deplore them. Whoever invented them should be dumped into a silo full of used coffee grounds. I can never get them to fit into my cup holders. No matter how many times I do that, searching for the slot opening, with the finger tap dance, I always end up with the coffee dribbling down across my nose, or completely dousing my cheek, and hot coffee pooling up into my ear. Seriously, this is why you see those people ahead of you opening their car doors and pouring out their cups. Have you ever gotten out of your parked vehicle and had to sidestep a puddle of blackish liquid? Chances are, it isn't oil. By the way, want to know where that lid to your traveling mug is, you can never seem to find? Check inside your dishwasher, it's laying in the food trap next to the peas.

There's a great number of other ways out there to get your quota of coffee in. There are coffee flavored jelly beans, chocolates, gums, candies, cakes, cookies, ice creams, frozen yogurts, cutesy flavored coffees, and iced coffees. So if you really haven't tried coffee in awhile you might want to rev your taste buds up with some interesting taste trials. I've even had the chance to eat some of those gourmet coffee beans. A little advice, do not eat gourmet coffee beans without first checking with your doctor.

No matter if you use the mug hugging hold, the open slot finger tap dance, index finger straw hugger, or the Styrofoam jig, take the time to really enjoy your coffee with someone you love, or even just met. Coffee has been around since about 800 A.D, so give it a chance, especially if you had one bad cup in the past. The next cup might just be the one that gets you hooked. Over the years, as I've hummed or sang parts of that old song, "Slaves To A Coffee Cup", I have to admit, I found out that I really wouldn't mind being indentured for the rest of my life to the wonderful taste of coffee.