Skip to main content

Morning Coffee

In this episode, Morning Coffee . . .

Now, I’m not saying everyone needs coffee. Some folks get by just fine on, I don’t know, sunlight and positive thinking. Me? I’m pretty sure I started drinking the stuff sometime around the Reagan administration.

Reading John Gierach’s "Ode to Campfire Coffee" in Trout Bum (a book that should be required reading for anyone who sees sleeping on the ground as recreation) got me thinking about how we’ve managed to complicate something as fundamentally simple as boiling water and adding grounds.

Taste, you say? Look, black coffee is an acquired taste, like tequila or cilantro. I just don’t get it. Gierach, bless his heart, mostly drinks his java streamside, probably while wearing wool socks and waders and contemplating the mysteries of the universe. As for me? My outdoor coffee experience is a bit different.

Picture this: the High Sierra, where campfires are banned (to avoid agitating Smoky Bear), and I’m huddled over a Whisperlite, coaxing ice-cold lake water to boil in a titanium pot. And here’s the kicker—the part where the coffee snobs gasp and clutch their French presses: Instant. Yes, I said it. Instant coffee. Lightweight, packable, and vaguely reminiscent of real coffee. I complement this culinary masterpiece with pilfered powdered milk from my hiking buddy and a sugar packet (one for each morning because I’m a planner). It’s a far cry from a streamside brew, but it gets the job done.

Back in civilization, my coffee routine is a study in efficiency. 4:30 a.m., the witching hour, finds me brewing a pot for the long-suffering Mrs. For her, coffee is a necessity, a jumpstart to consciousness. For me, it’s more a digestive. Plus, there’s something civilized about sitting in my easy chair, warming my hands on the mug, and reading a book while the outside world is dark. My process is beautifully simple: electric coffee maker, five teaspoons of Trader Joe’s blend (nothing fancy, I’m not a coffee snob . . . mostly), five and a half cups of water, push the “brew” button. Done!

But then–Tucson happened. We took a vacation, and Robert decided it would be a good idea to teach me how to use his espresso machine. A real espresso machine. Suddenly, my simple five-teaspoon operation seemed . . . quaint. There was preheating involved, and grinding beans (with a burr grinder, no less), and tamping, and locking, and extracting. It was like launching a rocket! The lattes were delicious; I have to give him that. However, the entire process felt . . . excessive. I watched my barista’s demonstration, nodded politely, and quietly stepped back, worried I might break something.

So, yeah, Gierach’s essay got me thinking. About the lengths we go to for a caffeine fix. About the difference between necessity and ritual. And about how, sometimes, the simplest way is the best way.

Now–if you’ll excuse me, I hear my coffee maker calling. It's a simple call, the call of the "Brew" button. And I intend to answer.

I’m Patrick Ball, reminding you to stay curious and ask questions. See you in the next episode.

Bonus–my favorite funny morning coffee story.

Labels:

Comments

Patrick B. Ball said…
Thanks for the link to the Sinatra song, I've never heard that one before.
February 21, 2025 at 9:42 AM
Post a Comment

Most Popular of All Time

The Gopher Problem and the High Powered Solution

Vacationing in Maine this week, just a short drive down the coast from Freeport, it is hard not to think about the outsized impact one frustrated outdoorsman had on the gear we all use today. Bad equipment can ruin a perfectly good day on the water or the trail, but it takes a special kind of vision to turn cold feet into a century-old empire. This is the story of the company we now know as L.L.Bean, but more importantly, it is a masterclass in integrity, learning from failure, and standing behind your work. In 1912, Leon Leonwood Bean faced a persistent problem: returning from expeditions in the Maine woods with cold, wet feet. Instead of complaining, he got creative. He had a local shoemaker stitch waterproof rubber soles onto the flexible leather uppers of a hunting boot. He called it the Maine Hunting Shoe and mailed a flyer promising perfect satisfaction. Then reality arrived. Ninety of his first 100 pairs failed when the rubber separated from the leather. Not an effective product...
Post a Comment
Read more

Beyond Facts-The Deep Dive

✨ In this episode, Beyond Facts: Reimagining School–in the Age of AI . . .   This week's podcast is a bit different; it's another example of how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can offer tools to creatively enhance your analytical presentation of information. We took this week's blog and copied it into Gemini with the question, “If a story is to work, it must, on some level, create an illusion of escape and also achieve a goal simultaneously. Does this apply to my blog post that follows?” What's created is not just an analysis of the writing, but an AI-generated discussion produced “On the Fly” - Enjoy! Did you know that the word "school" comes from the ancient Greek word scholē , which originally meant "leisure"? Not a rigid schedule or droning lectures filled with "facts," but free time for thinking and conversation. To the Greeks, learning happened best when life slowed down—when you had room to reflect, to ask questions, and to wrestle ...
4 comments
Read more

Stamps and Snow

In this episode, Stamps and Snow . . .   You don’t usually walk into the local Post Office expecting a time warp . . . but here we are. All we wanted were stamps for this year's Christmas cards— yes, the old-fashioned paper ones that require licking, sticking, and hoping the Postal Service is feeling ambitious this week. But holiday errands have a talent for slowing you down, almost like the universe whispering, “Relax. You’re not getting out of this line any faster anyway.” So we waited. And while we waited, we talked (Are you surprised?). Because the Post Office is one of the few places where people still look up from their phones long enough to talk . . . Maybe it's because they're holding packages. It’s the modern town square: part civic duty, part free entertainment, part sociology experiment. The discussion began with holiday specials streaming on Netflix, Paramount+, and other services during this time of year. One gentleman who has lived in Vista since 1958 told us,...
3 comments
Read more

On Becoming Real

Some things get better with wear: old shoes, old friendships, and old books. Especially old books. A new volume arrives with crisp corners and a spine that hasn’t yet learned to bend. An old one has been somewhere. It has traveled through time in the hands of people who may no longer be around to tell us what they found inside. The copy of The Velveteen Rabbit (first published in 1922) on my desk is one of those books. My friend Don Hanley gave it to me. This late-1950s Doubleday edition features William Nicholson’s original illustrations and cream paper boards softened by age. Worn corners, a split spine, and colored tabs mark passages worth revisiting. Don didn’t hand me a keepsake. He gave me homework. When we talked about the book recently, he pointed me straight to the nursery conversation between a young rabbit and an old Skin Horse. The rabbit had noticed the mechanical toys around him—the ones with internal gears, bright paint, and stick-out handles that seem terribly impressiv...
Post a Comment
Read more