Mmmm that's good coffee (and cheap too!)

For years I've had this love/hate relationship with coffee.

I was raised as a tea drinker, thanks to my Mother's Irish-English background. My Dad on the other hand, is strictly coffee. But Dad's idea of coffee was always Maxwell House in a can, and he...*cringe*...reheats it. OK, maybe you can get away with that with that when you're doing tea, but coffee? Reheated coffee is not my cup of tea. Nor is that vile, bland stuff in a can. The heavenly stuff isn't quite so heavenly either.

So you're thinking, "Hey, I thought Mary was a tech. Now she's going on about coffee!" Yeah, well, techs drink coffee - live on it. So do gamers. When they're not getting Red Bull or Mountain Dew through an IV, guess what they're drinking? Coffee.

One of the best coffees I've ever tasted is at a local Greek diner. Wow. Rich. Nearly blew my head off. Tastes like more. But it was difficult if not impossible to get if you weren't a Greek diner. So like Odysseus of Hellenic myth, I set out upon my own personal quest, for coffee. I guess he went looking for something else.

I settled for Starbucks. I tried to tell myself I liked it. People around me kept commenting that it was bitter and because it was the best thing available, I defended it. But deep down inside I knew, it indeed was bitter and nothing like Greek diner coffee. You can get buzzed on Starbucks for sure, if all you want is a buzz. If you're looking for remarkable full-bodied taste, then perhaps you might crave a donut.

"America runs on Dunkin" or so the slogan goes. And indeed, it's much better than Starbucks. But there's a problem. It's almost impossible to go into a Dunkin Donuts, which in my estimation is a fairly decent cup of coffee, and just buy a coffee. The donuts, the bagels and those god-forsaken temptations - the cheddar cheese bagel twists are all displayed and beckoning their delights. Dunkin Donuts to a donut lover is like the red light district in Amsterdam to a sex addict. You can't eat just one and you can't escape with just a cup of coffee in hand.

7-11, don't get me started. The coffee is fine but who starts and ends with just a plain cup of coffee at a 7-11? By the time you're done adding cream and one of a dozen shots of this or that flavoured sweetener; you have a cup of coffee and a roller coaster's worth of sugar rush in your cup.

All I wanted was a great cup of coffee without all the caloric baggage. Better yet, I wanted something that I could be proud of putting in a thermos and taking to work. Even more, I wanted to be able to drink it all day and still like the taste of it the morning after. And can I get all this at a reasonable price?

Sounds like too much to ask. And it was as I tried numerous gourmet brands and taste-tested every type of coffee in every mall and market that was offering a sample. Brand after brand. I never finished any of them. Dozens of $10 coffees never passing the test. Bodums, espresso makers, drip coffee makers weren't cutting it either.

I had a hunch that the real coffee experience that I was after lay back in time, like in the 1950's, in a device called a percolator. No electricity, no fancy foreign machinery just good old American joe, the kind the cowboys made in the Wild West. I wanted to drink the kind of coffee that ace reporters drank while they pecked out news on their Remington typewriters that stopped the presses. I had a dream of this coffee and I was not to be denied.

And then one day, it happened, quite by accident when I was grocery shopping at Trader Joes. The sky parted and a whiff of something elusive, exotic, mysterious and oh so richly romantic filled the air. I turned and there was a decanter labeled, something so straight-forward and honest that it was not to be denied. The muted blue sign quite simply read: "Joe's Dark coffee - dark roast - rich and flavorful".

I poured. I tasted. My eyes rolled back in my head. Could it be true? I drank the whole thing. Not a bite. Not a bitter after taste, just drink after drink of some of the smoothest, richest, darkest coffee flavor I've ever had this side of my favorite Greek diner. My siren's song. I willingly crashed my boat upon the rocks for this coffee.

I wanted more! I wanted more! No, surely this magnificent beauty of a blend must cost a fortune. I ran. I hunted. I checked the shelves. It's $3.99.

THREE DOLLARS AND NINETY NINE CENTS for a whole can of this arabica ambrosia?

It appears so. I'm on my 4th can and it's only been days. I want more. I dance around my kitchen singing "Perca-perk-a perka-lator!". It's a dumb song I made up because I'm so overwhelmed with my new old-fashioned percolator (Farberware at Bed Bath & Beyond for under $25.00) and my new love, Joe's Dark.

I can't wait for tomorrow. I need more now.

By the way, here's a really cool coffee design for a t-shirt and other stuff. Check it out! coffee t-shirt, coffee lovers license plate holder, coffee mugs