The weekly prompt from my Florida writers’ group was ‘coffee’, and this is my submission. I hope you’ll enjoy reading and listening to it.
Among the disappointments in life for me, one of the greatest is the vast difference between the aroma and taste of coffee. I find the first mouth-watering, the second lip-puckering.
My parents were never true coffee-drinkers, so I didn’t grow up with the aroma of percolating coffee every morning. At one time, however, both drank instant coffee, made by pouring boiling water over powder in a mug.
Yecchhh!
A friend of mine back then was an only child, so his parents would invite me to their cottage frequently as a playmate for him. Both those parents enjoyed real coffee, and I still remember waking on cool, autumn mornings to the delicious fragrance of coffee wafting to our bedroom from the kitchen. It mingled deliciously with the smell of woodsmoke from the pot-bellied stove they used to warm the cottage. To this day, when my nostrils catch either of those sweet scents, I’m immediately transported back to those halcyon days.
Ahhhhh!
It was several years before I was allowed to drink coffee, of course. And just as I remember its delightful aroma, so, too, do I remember how devastated I was to actually taste the foul brew. I wondered then, and do to this day, how something that promised so much could deliver so little!
I mean, bacon smells delicious, right? And it tastes wonderful!
Fried onions and mushrooms tickle the olfactory senses, do they not? And they, too, fulfil their promise in the eating.
Alas, not coffee!
Mind you, I did try to make it sweeter for me, but sugar made it worse! The closest I ever got to enjoying a cuppa (and the word enjoying is employed generously here) is when I doused it with triple shots of flavoured creamer—hazelnut, French vanilla, even Baileys’ liqueur. But more often than not, most of the vile concoction grew cold in the mug.
I even tried fooling myself by referring to coffee with many a favourable sobriquet, such as java, brew, jamocha, or joe. But invariably, I ended up using more unflattering terms—ink, mud, battery acid, varnish remover.
Several years ago, I toured a coffee plantation in Guatemala in the company of family and friends, all of whom enjoy a cuppa. I happened to mention to one of our hosts that, although I didn’t really like drinking it, I loved the aroma of coffee.
To my surprise, he told me aroma is not the best way to judge coffee. Other factors—bean origin, processing methods, roast level, quality grading, brewing technique, and freshness—are more critical.
“You Americans are addicted to fragrance,” he told me, “so it is to you we export our most aromatic beans. But it is to Asia our most flavourful beans are shipped.”
When I quickly let him know I was Canadian, he merely shrugged and said, “¡Es lo mismo!” It is the same!
My aversion to coffee may be partially explained by the fact that I suffer uncomfortable symptoms after consuming caffeine, including palpitations. At one point, I considered trying decaffeinated versions of the brew, but as another aficionado once told me, “If it ain’t got caffeine, mate, it ain’t coffee!”
The closest I ever came to liking the stuff was during the years I sang in the bass section of a men’s barbershop chorus, Harbourtown Sound. One of our favourite songs was Java Jive, written by Ben Oakland and Milton Drake in 1940, recorded by both The Ink Spots and Manhattan Transfer, and by many barbershop choruses. The combination of melody, tempo, lyrics, and humour cheers me to this day.
I include a YouTube clip of the song here for your enjoyment, sung not by my chorus, but by the marvellous Westminster Chorus: Westminster Chorus – Java Jive | 2026 BinG!
For me, and I hope for you, that little ditty, unlike a real mug of coffee, is good to the last drop!
