editorial I WON'T GIVE UP MY COFFEE

If you simply type in the word Coffee in a search engine you will find that there are over 16,000,000 entries to help you narrow your search.

According to the website KoffeeKomer.com:

Coffee berries were first discovered in Ethiopia in c. 850

The world's first coffee shop was opened in Constantinople in 1475

Coffee was brought to Europe via France in 1600

and to the NEW WORLD by Captain John Smith (wasn't he the Pocahontas guy?) the founder of Virgina in 1607

and according to About.com Espresso was first brewed in France in 1822

and Starbucks became a nationwide mainstay in the nineties along with Caribou Coffee

 Now nearly every little town, at least with in driving distance from my home, has at least one family owned coffee shop and even McDonald's and gas stations have upgraded from the

cup o'mud that was offered when I was a kid going with my parents on early morning trips to Grandma's. Now even my mom and dad stop for a little cappuccino and some French vanilla creamer when they take their late night trips to the nearby casinos.  My sister is a huge fan of chai and vanilla chai in her coffee waappatuui and while my mother-in-law still enjoys her darker than molassas, three o'clock in the afternoon cup, my father-in-law fluffs his up with some homemade "fancy stuff" she makes for him.

 In this economy, my self-employed farmer husband and I are truely struggling to put food on the table and keep the phone line tied up so the creditors can't call.  We've always struggled but, this year has truely been the worst ever.  We've given up just about every luxury and most of the necessities, a family can do without.  However there is one thing we will beg for along with groceries from our relatives...(and my whole coffee family seems to agree on)...

WE WON'T GIVE UP OUR COFFEE...

We will give up professional hair cuts, we don't go out much anyway and...it will grow back,  we will give up trips to each other's homes, those twenty minute drives use up too much gas...we will cut back on meat and veggies for dinner (just kidding--we have a local food pantry and our mother's really do live nearby) but, none of us has been willing to give up our coffee, even in it's basic form.  ( I like my grocery store brand with 2/3 coffee and 1/3 milk please)

I truly apologize to the underpaid coffee farmers of the world and honestly believe in fair pay for anything but, until I can feed my children fully rounded meals and maybe even dessert, the can of 'whatever I can get' will have to do. . .

For me it's not about the caffeine, that's just a bonus, until Monday. . . I'm writing this on a Sunday afternoon and we just scraped the bottom of the can to get through today and

uuugh. . . we're out of milk!

By Monday afternoon I'll have a huge coffee headache and be calling around for help but, still, it's not about the caffeine. To me coffee is love and comfort and security of some sort, as long as there is coffee around, I can at least tell my kids everything will be OK, then figure out how to make that statement not be a lie--over a cup of coffee. Coffee has often been my only link to sanity, it far surpasses any other legal drug (not that I've tried the illegal kind). Tobacco has never been my thing, I tried to start but just couldn't do it . . . pain relievers are only for injuries, the flu, and (by Monday afternoon) caffeine with-drawls, a glass of wine is great now and then but, please, please don't take away my coffee.

The standard coffee-in-the-morning cup is a must have, that expensive stuff would just make me feel neglectful to my children when we have to eat eggs and milk every day, or they have to go to Grandma's, or school, for lunch. I just have to know it is here, I mean, I have even woken up at 3 a.m. thinking I can smell the coffee brewing, then been disappointed that I have to go back to sleep for a few more hours until the pot turns on to wake me up for real.

On those mornings I've had a hub-hangover (from staying up until 4 a.m. working on my hub-abilities) and gotten up at 7 a.m. to get my daughter off to school, I knew my coffee would be there to get me through. ( I even saved just enough on my Starbucks card for a bare-bottom cup-in-a-pinch rescue--my gift to myself on my last birthday)

Smelling that fresh aroma, the heady depth of coffee beans that have been ground to their death then scalded with water, that is heaven-on-Earth to me. It's even better when I am the one who gets to open the new can (yep-the cheap stuff) and the trapped up scent of earthly, sun drenched, gold rushes out and slams you in the face, that's totally awesome (oops--dated myself there). I get some kind of smoothed over soothing feeling as I pour that first cup in the morning then watch the milk splot into the cup and swirl back up like a cloud from the bottom of the deep brown pond...oooh! Holding that warm, smooth cup in my hand feeling my fingers writhe with the heat that conducts across the ceramic wall between me and my liquid treasure, I could sit there for an hour if it would last that long. But, how the first tongue-swishing, taste-bud lapping river of creamy smooth "I Love You" in a cup trickles down your throat past your heart and lungs and settles into a cavern of warmth you can feel all the way down...WOW, excuse me while I catch my breath.

You know, I have even learned to love it cold, and I don't mean iced coffee cold (that's like another dream in a cup along with true coffee house coffees but, I'm already concerned about being flagged for the suggestive nature of this content, that would put me in the hot-seat for sure.) I just mean, sitting on the counter way too long cold coffee, sure it's more bitter and less soothing but it still loves me just the... hey...wait a minute...do you think it is the caffeine???

well, anyway...

I WILL NOT GIVE UP MY COFFEE

 So, since I was out of coffee I decided to visit my sister.

She loves coffee too, and cared enough to give me half a can from a party she had,

MY COFFEE ANGEL!

(coffee meltdown avoided)