Coffee, tea or me?

Tony Deyal

IN MY grandmother's house, there were always three kinds of tea. We had green tea, coffee tea and cocoa tea. Sometimes, for a treat, we had Milo tea. Whatever the reason, I preferred coffee tea and have maintained that preference ever since those days. I have now reached the point where I don't sweat. I percolate and my life's goal is to amount to a hill of beans. When people call me a drip I consider that a compliment.

My continuing to drink coffee has nothing to do with some studies that have suggested that coffee is an aphrodisiac for middle-aged men. This is a secondary factor. I like the taste and smell, although by the fifth or six cup, I hardly notice.

Some studies show that caffeine, the stimulant found in coffee, is addictive. After my tenth cup, that hardly matters. What matters is the headache that comes from not having my morning coffee or from my infrequent efforts to stop drinking the stuff. When I reach that stage, instant coffee takes too long. I discovered that tea, which is also heavily loaded with caffeine, is not my cup of anything. Coffee is. So much so in fact that Juan Valdez named his donkey after me.

My wife once tasted a cup of my coffee and said it tasted like mud. However, as I explained to her, it was ground only ten minutes before. Coffee does not keep me awake at nights. My wife and children, my neighbours sometimes when they have a party, the noise from the nearby refinery do that. Coffee numbs my faculties enough that, like Schultz in Hogan's Heroes I hear nothing, I see nothing even though I sleep with my eyes open.

Do I get the shakes, nervousness or irregular heartbeats? As a happily married man, I find this occurring less frequently than in the days when I succumbed to the charms of ladies, who also made my mouth dry and my eyes pop. Now, I don't get excited, I get steamed. Like the lady who angrily returned her coffee-maker to the store. Her husband had bought her one of the very fancy electric coffee-makers with all the latest gadgets on it. The salesman had carefully explained how everything worked. He showed her how to plug it in and set the timer. He told her, "Then you can go to bed and when you wake up the coffee is ready. So what's the problem? Is it damaged?" the salesman asked when the lady came back with the coffee-maker. "No," the lady explained. "It's working and the coffee is wonderful. What I don't understand is why I have to go to bed every time I want to make a cup of coffee?"

Coffee has now become a very big industry with global franchises making money. It is the bucks in Starbucks. It has its own magazines like Fresh Cup. Coffee is now so widely accepted and used that it has legal sanction as a basis for the dissolution of a marriage. A man who had suffered for years from the terrible coffee his wife made, took the percolator to his lawyer demanding action. Taking one taste and then examining the particles lodged in the filter, the lawyer shook his head in agreement, "Yes," he said. "You do have grounds for divorce."

Coffee is now a gourmet experience bordering on the decadent. According to Fresh Cup, "It is almost a religious experience to watch the roaster sorting through the cooling tray to remove the culls and broken beans, all the while watching the fire box, listening to the beans and trying to keep cool in front of the blazing, crackling machine. Only then can you introduce the beans. You must watch closely as you approach the second pop, and you must dump the beans at just the right time. Under the watchful eye of the roaster, wood-roasted coffee does indeed pick up the nuances of the wood."

Commenting on different coffees served at a competition, one gourmet said, "Some were sublimely subtle and elegant in their flavour. Then you had the big symphony orchestra coffees that just blasted you to the other side of the room." People who just like coffee find great difficulty in the politically correct world where, in Los Angeles, the waiters ask, "Would you like decaffeinated or non-decaffeinated?" Now it has got even worse. You have a choice of shade grown, bird friendly, eco-OK, fair trade, organically grown and certified organic. It is enough to drive you to drink.

These days reasons why coffee is better than women are circulating. Some of these reasons are, "A cup of coffee looks good in the morning", "You won't fall asleep after a cup of coffee", "You can take black coffee home to meet your parents," "You can turn the pot on, leave the room, and it will be hot when you get back", "Coffee doesn't mind if you wake up at three in the morning and decide to have a cup", and "Coffee goes down easier".

I do not find coffee and women mutually incompatible. I introduce my wife as my coffee-mate. And when anyone asks me, "How are you?" I reply with confidence, "Good to the last drop".

Tony Deyal was last thrown out of the Red Cross for failing the examination. When asked what CPR meant he said, "Coffee Provides Resuscitation".

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