blech

Gads, this coffee sucks.

I'm not a coffee snob. I don't waft the coffee aroma and comment on its bouquet. I don't swirl the first sip in my mouth and remark, "This is quite the vibrant Venezuelan blend. If my tongue does not deceive me, I'd guess this is last fall's harvest." I don't own a French press. I don't mind coffee from McDonalds, 7-11, or Denny's. I don't buy whole beans, though I do own an electric grinder. Despite all these "I don'ts", I still have standards and the coffee I've been drinking at work for the last week falls way short.

Perhaps, I should make a short complaint long by expounding on my personal history with coffee here at work.

When I started work with the State, I shared a tiny office with three other people. We had a collective coffee pot and a rotational coffee schedule that resulted in me purchasing every fourth bag of beans. There were implied standards, such as no flavored java, no tins of desiccated grounds, and no decaf. All was cool.

A year later and much to our delight, my coworkers and I were kicked out of our crummy office and into the cubicle farm. We took our drip coffee pot and our communal coffee philosophy with us. The pot was set up in the free-range kitchenette area where all those interested could partake. At first, it was good. We drank our coffee and occasionally tipped the pot to an interested stranger. "Sure, drink up. Bring in the next bag of grounds and join our hippy ring of coffee love." Our core group grew from four to five to eight to… to a point where I was no longer sure who was a valid contributing member and who was a weasel-shaped sponge.

Quality became difficult to control. I would cough up $10 for a pound of Starbucks/Dazbog/Seatles Best and everybody would rejoice. Unfortunately, the next round would be a $4 tub of Chock Full O' Nuts from Sam's Club, purchased by some lazy-ass cheapskate. Should I have expected anything different from government employees? No. To exacerbate the situation, people began leaving virulent sticky-notes on our coffee pot proclaiming:

"PLEASE USE 3 SCOOPS ONLY!!!"
or "IT'S SOMEBODYELSE'S TURN TO BUY COFFEE!!"
or "WHOEVER IS USING MY CREAM NEEDS TO BUY THEIR OWN."
or "THANK YOU ALL FOR FUCKING UP MY COMMUNAL COFFEE RING OF LOVE!"

Okay, so maybe that last note was never posted, but I sure thought about it. I had a grand vision of providing decent coffee in the spirit of peace, love, and brotherhood… engineers, with flowers in their hair, holding hands and spinning around in a haze of secondhand smoke infused with the laughter of song:

Sugar magnolia
Ringin' that blue bell
Caught up in sunlight
Come on out singing
I'll walk you in the sunshine
Come on honey, come along with me

Fah! I was a fool. The ring surpassed its critical mass, and I was left weeping at the contentious mockery of my majestic plan. I silently defected and my cubical neighbor, who founded the original coffee ring back in that forgotten cramped office, gave up as well. Without fanfare, the two of us drove to Target to buy a new pot and then to Starbucks for a pound of freshly ground French roast. We hid the new pot, which had an automatic brewing timer, behind a stack of binders in my coworker's cube'.

That's pretty much how things have been for the last year. My neighbor and I share a coffee pot in accordance with the implied edicts of the original commune.

So why has the coffee sucked lately? My neighbor brought in a bulk tin of crappy coffee, Yuban to be exact. He warned me. It has been so long since he and I last sampled canned coffee he figured it was time we revisited that which we eschew and remind ourselves why we drink what we drink. Sounded like a dumb idea to me, but whatever

I've been drinking this piss for a week now and I am thoroughly reminded why we don't buy bulk crap. Unfortunately, bulk coffee is indeed "bulk" and a week of drinking stale brew has barely dented the supply, I swear this Yuban gets worse with each cup. Perhaps we can donate the rest of this tin-o'-shit to those crabby engineers and their poor-quality coffee circle of spite.

I just want a decent cup of coffee, man.
...and so it was written, shenry at 6/03/2004 09:02:00 AM.
...and so it was appended with .