2023, Family, Food, Travel, Uncategorized, work

Coffee Time

64 Comments

We are incredibly spoiled, and order six pounds of coffee beans every six weeks or so from this coffee place in Brookings, SD. The beans are dark roasted. I place the order on-line, and they arrive, freshly roasted, sometimes the next day via Speedee Delivery. They are Carmen Pampas/San Ignacio blend beans from Bolivia/Peru, and for every pound we order the coffee place makes a donation to destitute schools in Bolivia. The coffee tastes heavenly. We like it strong. We only drink it in the morning. The box of beans is redolent of coffee aroma, even before we open it.

I really don’t know how the coffee place and Speedee Delivery manage to get the beans to us so quickly. It is 500 miles from there to here. We only drink coffee we brew at home, and never go to coffee places in town. I like my coffee with half and half and sugar. Husband needs heavy cream and sugar in his coffee. We use a Bodum French press pot to brew our coffee.

The other day I was able to greet the Speedee Delivery guy when he delivered our coffee order. He told me he couldn’t stand the smell of coffee, and it was really hard when he had to go into coffee shops and got all these boxes of coffee beans to deliver. I sure hope he didn’t have to drive 500 miles to deliver ours! Poor guy!

How do you take your coffee? What cooking smells can’t you abide? What comestibles are you fussy about?

64 thoughts on “Coffee Time”

  2. I currently drink one large cup only in the morning with my breakfast that I make with espresso machine. I add it to a full cup of hot foamy goat milk. Then I put cinnamon on top.  I get my Duluth “Italian” roasted Alakaf coffee beans at the Cloquet Natural Food Store and grind them there.  In the past I have used a Bodum French Press. (I love remembering buying my first one in a warehouse style store in New York City in mid 1970s) and still use it if I make coffee for me and a guest after breakfast. I first had cafe au lait when living in Switzerland in 1965 and have loved it ever since.  Cynthia “Life is a shifting carpet…learn to dance.”

    Liked by 6 people

    Reply

  3. Sin leche. Sin azucar.
    No milk. No sugar.
    The baristas in Madrid just shook their heads when I ordered espresso this way. Same reaction in NYC. From the age of 10 until now aged 70, drinking anything in coffee would be out of courtesy to a host.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  4. I just remembered that the first time I had coffee with hot milk was on the Italian boat to Europe: Cappuccino!!! Fell in love immediately!

    Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  5. I am in the minority. I don’t like coffee in any way, shape, or form nor do I like anything coffee flavored. I don’t find the smell of coffee appealing either. I managed to get through college and twenty plus years of working straight nights at a hospital without drinking that vile stuff. Anyone who comes to my home and wants coffee has to supply their own.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

      1. BIR – I will very occasionally drink tea – mint, pomegranate with hibiscus and lemongrass, anything a little bit on the sweet side. I am not much of a pop drinker anymore either. Never really did like Coke but drank it in junior and senior high because my friends did. Switched to Pepsi for awhile. Now I’m down to a very occasional root beer, cream soda, or Fanta orange. I try to avoid caffeine as much as possible.

        Liked by 4 people

        Reply

      2. No coffee for me either. I do have tea most mornings, I don’t remember if there’s caffine in it. I pretty much only drink root beer so that’s caffine free.

        For a few years I drank Kwik Trip cappachino, but that’s fake coffee.

        There are a few smells I don’t like. Certain oils really put me off. I don’t know what they are. No point in learning them.

        Like

        Reply

  6. Our dog prefers his coffee creamy and sweet. He is good at distracting us so we forget we left our coffee cups on the lamp tables, the he tries to drink our coffee as fast as he can. It is terrible for him, so we really try to be vigilant.

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

    1. We have a food-driven puppy here, as well. We now must be vigilant in ways we have not since the last food-driven dog was living with us. Last night I gave myself a rare treat—Bailey’s on ice—after an emotionally difficult day visiting my mom the day before. I rested all day yesterday which is not what I like to do with my time, then poured the Baileys. Phoebe nearly got it in the manner you described at your house.

      Liked by 5 people

      Reply

  7. I switched to tea for at home a couple of decades ago – I was tired of being addicted to coffee. Tea has about half the caffeine, but now I’m addicted to tea..

    I love the smell of coffee, and do have it weekly (with lots of cream, no sugar) when at the Blue Heron Coffee Shop, or occas. from Mugby Junction drive through. And when I make coffee at home for guests, it’s with a French press.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  8. My agency was housed for years in a former dorm on the campus of Dickinson State University. It was a five story building with a basement. We also used to have two staff of Irish heritage who insisted on making corned beef and cabbage for all of us on St. Patrick’s Day. They started cooking it in the basement kitchen in the morning at 8:00 , and by noon it would be really done and overcooked, and the smell of that cabbage permeated the entire building, going up the elevator shaft and the stairwells. It was awful. I will eat cooked cabbage, but not cabbage that has been overcooked like that.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  9. I love the smell of coffee but can’t stand the taste of it. 20 years ago, I toyed with the idea of opening a coffee shop because of exactly those two points. But my folks insisted that it would take huge sums of money and the whole ‘gourmet coffee’ trend was a fad that would be gone in 6 months and then I’d be destitute and homeless. (This is always the scenario that I get when I pitch a business idea to my folks that doesn’t involve working for someone else. They call it ‘being supportive.’) I don’t remember how but I got hooked on tea instead. Probably, I was being obstinate as my friends were all starting to drink coffee.

    Liked by 6 people

    Reply

  10. Rise and Shine Baboons,

    I love dark, strong coffee with heavy cream. Sometimes I include sugar, because I love sweet things, but the hypoglycemia that follows after the sugar and caffeine leave my blood system is not worth the indulgence. I have a large cup in the morning and usually a small cup in the early afternoon.

    My parents loved coffee, especially my dad. It became my job to make his morning/afternoon coffee in the ancient, battered drip coffee pot. I boiled the water, and while the water boiled filled the grounds well, usually Folgers or Butternut, then attached it the the water well on the top part. Next was the tricky part. I poured the boiling water from the bottom pot into the top well, then set the top back on the top, This was all done without burning myself. It dripped through then poured my dad his coffee and gave him a straw with which to sip it. That was followed by his very loud “Aaaaah.”

    Liked by 6 people

    Reply

  11. I used to drink a lot of coffee. I would drink it dark and black, never with cream or sugar. As I’ve gotten older I find I don’t tolerate coffee as well as I once did and too much makes me jumpy. My habitual morning beverage is now tea—still dark and without amendments. At restaurants (in the US, that is) I usually get coffee rather than tea, because their tea selection is seldom satisfactory and the water is never hot enough.

    Robin still favors coffee in the morning so I make her a pot in our French press when I hear her beginning to stir.

    I can’t think offhand of any culinary smells I can’t abide but what comes to mind are those scents of potpourri and scented candles that often accost one in gift shops. One sniff and I’m back out the door. The same goes for “room fresheners”. And patchouli. I really can’t stand patchouli.

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

    2. I’m with you, Bill, about scents. I can’t even walk into a gift store that sells scented candles or potpourri. Lavender in particular gives me a whopping headache. No aromatherapy for this gal! Vanilla and mild lemon are about the only two I can handle. I gave up perfume decades ago.

      Liked by 3 people

      Reply

      1. Patchouli is the scent that makes me tear up and get nauseous. Awful to me. And YA has some kind of tea tree oil that I can usually tolerate but occasionally she really douses herself when she’s going out. Unfortunately it really lingers even after she’s left the house. This past January I opened some windows and turned on a fan it was so bad!

        Liked by 3 people

        Reply

        1. Count me in the anti-patchouli oil league. I think I overdosed on it during my college days when every square inch of campus and downtown Carbondale – such as it is – reeked of it.

          Liked by 1 person

        2. When I worked in Dinkytown at Art Materials during my college days we would get patchouli-reeking customers in often. We would each try to pawn them off on one another. We called the scent “eau de hip”.

          Liked by 1 person

  12. Black mostly. Not particular about the kind of coffee I drink. I’ll have an occasional latte, usually plain; sometimes a mocha. Love the smell of coffee.

    Not many cooking odors offend me other than maybe the fried fish smell that lingers in the air for days after you fry fish.

    Fussy about comestibles? Not many. My preferred cut of steak is NY strip, but I won’t turn down any other cut. The only thing that’s forbidden in my kitchen is grocery store “cooking wine.” Blechhhhh! Any “real” wine, even the cheap stuff like Gallo Hearty Burgundy is better than that swill.

    Chris in Owatonna

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  13. Smell of beets cookie makes me very sick. When my mother canned them, I moved out of the house. She would get them done in a few days all at once. When she caked them for a meal, it was not as bad. I could just barely tolerate it. Also cabbage cooking I dislike, but does not make me sick.
    People around here think there is something wrong with me because I cannot drink brands like Hills Bros. I have found I like Aldi German ground coffee. That sounds all wrong doesn’t it. I add a little heavy whipping cream.
    Nail polish makes me very sick. But the place where Sandra lives has found an odorless brand. Wonderful. I do not have to leave when they do her nails, and she loves her long decorated nails.
    Clyde

    Liked by 6 people

    Reply

    1. They gave me new eye drops to try. As you can tell from the above, they made me very blind at close range for about 40 minutes. But she wants me to try them tonight.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

  15. Isn’t there a tropical fruit that smells terrible but some people think it is a real delicacy? I think it has pointy knobs all over it.

    Like

    Reply

      1. And I can tell you, the smell is truly revolting. I’m not sure I could get it close enough to my face to taste it…. even WITH a clothes pin on my nose!

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

  18. I like a little coffee in my milk. (Enough said on that one.) Some smells associated with cooking lamb shanks make me uncomfortable. I’m pretty uch able to appreciate and consume anything that I can swallow, but bitter melon (in Taiwan) usually was beyond me.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  20. As you all know, I can drink coffee just about any way. Even cold from sitting on the counter too long. Left to my own devices I like the flavored decaffeinated coffees that I get from Berres Brothers in Wisconsin. Mostly for the smell. But I know a lot of folks don’t care for them so I always keep a tin of “regular” coffee in the freezer for visitors!

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  21. All artificial scents give me instant migraines: candles, room fresheners, most perfumes and such if they are strong, and the like. Some flowers such as peonies are bad.
    I like fish but I steam it; which some how does not linger so much. I throw the water out as soon as I take the fish out. I throw the packaging and such out as it is steaming.
    I spend a great part of my life planning to avoid strong sensory input. To go to Moondogs games I have to accept I will go home with a bad headache. But Mankato fans are pretty dull. Last Saturday the woman behind me must have dumped the whole bottle of perfume on her. Then a friend came in and quickly told her to go wash it off. She did without complaint.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Saw another new doctor late this afternoon. I knew someone was going to say this. She suggests I give up coffee for a month to see the effect. Sigh. One of the few joys just for me. Sigh. Well, will I do it?

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  22. Husband makes our daily, two small cups of freshly ground and brewed coffee in a Moka pot. He used to put a little frothed milk in it, but quit because the frother was a beast to clean, so now we just have a little heavy cream instead. He buys medium roasted beans from whatever country strikes his fancy at the moment.

    I used to drink lots of coffee at work, usually with both sugar and cream. I quit both the sugar and cream in Greenland because I was the only one in the kitchen who used it, so it was just a nuisance. I once quit drinking coffee at the office while I was working at the law firm. I had a headache for six weeks following my abstinence, that gave me some idea of how much caffeine my body was affecting me. I’ve been pretty cautious about it ever since, but I do appreciate a good cup of coffee.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  23. I don’t drink coffee either. I drink tea most mornings, I think it’s black tea, and I guess that has caffeine? But otherwise, only Pop Idrink is root beer and that doesn’t have caffine.

    Tea tree oil does stink. As do some other grounding oils. And someone gave us a maple candle as a gift once. I buried it in a cabinet in the laundry room. Kelly says it’s not so bad.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  28. From an early age, I would sneak some sips from my parent’s coffee cups in the morning. With cream and sugar. So, I’ve been an addict for quite some time. I just have one larger cup in the morning. After being a manager at Starbucks for a few years before teaching, I did become somewhat of a coffee snob. IF/when I have the time in the morning to do a French press, well, that’s always a good day 🙂 I agree with several above about the smell of some plugins or such. Some of those really get to me. Have a great day baboons!

    Like

    Reply

Leave a reply to PlainJane Cancel reply