Tuesdays are supposed to be for knitting here on the blog, but being that I feel like I'm taking one step forward and three back with that pink lace thing, I'm going to dedicate today do something else. Actually, the pink lace isn't going that awfully. If I work on it at home, all goes smoothly. I got several rows done over the weekend with nary a mis-stitch. But when I pull it out on the bus, something very wrong happens. I knit, knit, knit and get about two rows done on the way into work...and then on the way back home I knit, knit, knit - then realize I have the wrong number of stitches, and that means I messed up two rows ago, so I tink, tink, tink back to where I had started earlier in the morning... Hm... Not too fulfilling.
Yesterday in between my knitting and tinking, I stopped by the grocery store after work because I was utterly out of coffee. Correction: I was utterly out of decaffeinated and/or drinkable coffee. I have a canister of some sort of coffee grounds in the cupboard. The grounds smell pretty good - it's French vanilla, I believe. But man oh man is the coffee that drips from those grounds BAD. Not bad like "I must puke, this stuff is bitter and nasty" - it's just...not good. In fact, as much as I adore the pleasant aroma of vanilla wafting from the coffee pot or mug - the smell of this coffee now turns me completely off. (And yet I drink it...but often with much sugar and/or milk).
Perhaps the culprit is that I am becoming a coffee snob. I am not sure I believe this to be even possible, because I don't really drink all that much coffee. Maybe 3 or 4 cups a week. Certainly not even a daily habit. I have, however, progressed from where I was four years ago, when I enjoyed only the smell of the coffee but never the taste. Now...I actually like the taste (except for that bad coffee in the cupboard)! I can thank my roommates for this transformation over the course of three years. Lori used to buy the most aromatic coffees ever, and on Saturday and Sunday mornings she's brew a pot and the whole house would have that "the best part of waking up" smell that gets the people in the commercials out of bed. For the first year or so I would rush to the pot, pour out a cup, and savor the aroma. Then I'd take a sip and realize, "Oh. It doesn't taste like it smells." It was always disappointing. But I suppose I thought maybe if I drank enough of it, the taste would catch up with the aroma...because I'd drink it! Again, milk and sugar really helped. For many, many months this went on - I'd force down a cup once or twice a week in hopes that some day the taste would improve.
One day Lori bought a coffee grinder, and my life would forever be changed. I cannot be 100% sure that it was the grinder or the beans themselves, but once Lori started freshly grinding the coffee before it went into the coffeemaker basket, the coffee became a different beast altogether. I recall drinking my first cup of this stuff and thinking, "This is SMOOTH." I had really no concept of what people meant by "smooth coffee" other than hints of it from the first pot made from a freshly opened bag of grounds. I don't know if I can accurately describe the difference, either. It's not that the aroma matches up with the taste, it's just that...it doesn't MATTER. The coffee is that good.
When the roommates and I parted ways, I settled into my own apartment and acquired a coffeemaker that someone was getting rid of down the hall at work. But I did not have a grinder. I thought about getting one time and time again, but I thought, "This is ridiculous! The grinder can't be the difference. We probably were just getting better coffee, and I'm more used to coffee now." So I bought grounds. I found that the coffee I bought from the cafes and specialty stores, which they ground at check-out, were much better than the grounds I bought from the grocery store. But was it really worth spending waaaay more money on those "snobby" coffees? Certainly not.
However. Yesterday I found myself with absolutely no options but the gross-tasting grounds in the cupboard. I had scraped the very last grounds from all the premium coffees into the basket a few days earlier. I made a cup of the bad stuff, drank it contemplatively while waiting for the bus, and then resolved after a long day at work that I would just go buy some of the semi-good stuff. Something flavored, maybe Starbucks or the local grocery "good stuff" from Market District. But when I arrived at the store, I couldn't find anything that suited my fancy. Nothing was flavored (I do so love the flavored coffee... The smell, even if it does not match the taste, gets me every time), nothing was decaffeinated. A couple bags of stuff met my requirements, but they were whole bean, and having no grinder, that was useless. I walked up and down the coffee aisle and stopped at the "special coffee" section...sigh...the expensive stuff. My eye was caught by a picture of the Michigan mitten on the front of one bag. "Michigan Sweet Cherry" is what it read.
In all honesty, cherry-flavored coffee does absolutely nothing for me. However, I was entranced by the Michigan reference, and I investigated further. When I read "Mackinac Island Fudge," I was taken. Ahhh...Michigan... I had no idea what that sort of coffee would taste like (but I was pretty sure it would not, in fact, taste like real Mackinac Island fudge!), but simply thinking about Mackinac Island, that motorize-vehicularless summer resort in the middle of the lake between the Upper and Lower Peninsulas, the destination all middle-school children of Kentwood Public Schools waited and waited and waited for until the last few months of eighth grade...I was pretty sure that would make a good cup of coffee.
But. It was whole bean.
But...it said MICHIGAN!
But...it's whole bean.
But - it's made in Grand Rapids! What we had here was Schuil Coffee (nice Dutch name, wouldn't you say?), which, I regret to admit, I hadn't really been familiar with while I lived in Grand Rapids. ...That is, of course, the way it is usually, isn't it? Don't know what your own city has to offer until you leave!
So. I bought the coffee. And a grinder.
This morning I near scared Joelle out of her fur as I ground up a couple scoops. After a few minutes through the coffeemaker...it was ready. I finished my toast and sat down to see what I would get.
It was smooth. It did not taste like Mackinac Island fudge, but it was smooth.
That's one good cup of coffee.
...If anyone would like the remainder of a canister of mediocre coffee grounds that is supposed to taste like French vanilla, I have one for the taking...
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