Coffee

I’ve purchased an automatic, 12 cup coffee maker. It’s the first one I’ve ever owned. I do drink coffee but have used other methods of brewing it. For many years I’ve used a Melita filter basket with Melita filters, No 6. The original Pyrex carafe was broken ages ago and I currently use a Corning ware tea pot with blue corn flowers. I actually started to make coffee with the Melita filters many years ago after Mom and Dad returned from a visit with family in Kentucky. Because they enjoyed the coffee Uncle Ernest had served, they switched from using a percolator to the Melita drip and, I too, began using the Melita filters.

I’m not a coffee connoisseur. I do not know how to make a ‘good’ cup of coffee. My brews range from medium strong to one so diluted only the color suggests coffee. It’s a matter of trial and error because I don’t take coffee making seriously. During the hot days of summer I like iced coffee when I wake up, but when the weather is cold, a mug of hot, steaming coffee is a priority.

One of the nicest morning rituals of morning coffee that I ever enjoyed was while visiting at Mesa Tessa’s in Arizona. Shortly after her rising at 6:00 o’clock every morning, the delicious aroma of hazelnut coffee wafted down the hall and into my bedroom. What fun those early morning chats and gossips were as we filled our mugs a second time.

Once upon a time I enjoyed sipping my morning coffee from a beautiful bone china cup and saucer that my daughter had given me for Christmas, but they have long since been packed away in storage. Currently, I have several favorite mugs; a colorful lady bug mug from the Houston Pyramids my niece, Cindy, gave me, and a Starbucks mug from San Francisco, that Olga, a friend of my daughter’s, gave me during my sojourn in California after the Rita Hurricane.

Coffee is an acquired taste for me. As a child I disliked the odor of brewing coffee but during my adult travels, I became accustomed to an occasional after dinner coffee as I lingered at the table with friends. I didn’t start drinking coffee daily until after I reached the age of thirty. Over the years, there have been long periods when I have stopped drinking coffee altogether. I never suffered a ‘coffee headache’ when I quit, but that’s probably because I was used to drinking a weak brew.

I used to attend the monthly town council meetings where I lived before my move to Houston, Texas. During intermission I’d grab a paper cup and help myself to coffee the council members served. It would be so strong I could only take a few sips, but that was enough to keep me awake until dawn.

Many years ago, Mom developed a taste for coffee ice cream and coffee milk shakes which became family favorites. She often baked cake recipes calling for coffee as one of the ingredients. One of her recipes, from a Dear Abby column, was for a beef roast made with coffee. I made that recipe once. It took five hours and was labor intensive. I was cured from ever making it a second time.

When I traveled through Houston before the Rita Hurricane, the espressos my son made for me were delightful interludes until time for him to drive me to the airport. Now that I live in Houston, I start my day drinking coffee and having IM chats with my son in his apartment in the building next to mine, and my sister, Esther, in Baton Rouge who drinks the kind of coffee served in New Orleans. I’ve never cared for her kind of coffee, but regardless, when she comes to visit, she can use the new coffee maker to brew her coffee and have her morning coffee the way she likes it.