Oh yes, coffee.

I saw this entry at Michele’s early today and I left a comment. It wasn’t so long ago that James at Parkway Rest Stop praised the joys of black coffee, and I’ll have to echo that thought.

No matter how many people think that Star Trek: Voyager amounted to seven years of fluff, it has its merits, and one of them is Janeway, in her usual utilitarian way, saying — nay, demanding — from the replicator for that matter: “Coffee. Black.” I can copy the way she says it, including the voice. (I will not, however, put my money where my mouth is and post an audioblog of me saying “Coffee. Black.”)

Coffee. The mythos is steeped deep in so much BS it could be its own quagmire. I’m one to agree with people who think that flavored beans is violation of coffee to a tee. I will, however, take my time choosing the next five days’ worth of coffee at the local Starbucks, or whatever beanery that’s there.

I think that choosing from so many different roasts can be a headache, but as long as they don’t have adulterants on them, I’ll be fine. What is important, for me, is freshness. There was a time that I would not drink coffee grounds that I knew were more than three days old. Of course, it could have all been in the mind, but back in college, days old coffee served to me surreptitiously would have earned the flat remark that was a trademark of my snobbery: “This coffee is terrible.”

Now, economic reasons prevent me from being that picky with coffee, but whenever I do buy a new package of coffee, the day it is opened is the day spent drinking it nonstop, alternating between glasses of water in order to prevent dehydration. It truly is one of the simplest pleasures that I enjoy.

Complications such as 1300 ways to have coffee, do not irritate nor aggravate me; ignorance to these is my best revenge. I’d rather have my drip coffee maker, or better yet, a Freedom Press, and some very good, filtered water.

No other drink, aside from alcohol, can bring people so close together. It is the drink of friendships, of time shared between people who care. It is the drink of those in a hurry, and those who have too much time. It is the drink that fits socially in where alcohol does not.

I could go on and on but my cup is dangerously getting too cool for my taste.