If you know me personally, you know that I drink coffee.
A LOT of coffee.
The caffeine is a serious added bonus- but not the main reason I drink coffee. I love a good, strong, steaming hot cup of coffee for the taste. You can understand my anger and sense of betrayal when my coffee maker fails to make a good pot of coffee in the morning.
I need ten solid hours of sleep every night to wake up, be functional, and not feel tired. Most of the time I don't get the ten hours because I feel like I'm wasting too much of my day sleeping. Needless to say, the first thing I do in the morning is stumble blindly across the dark house, shivering, and head straight to the counter. Sometimes I'll get all the coffee makings ready the night before. I'll measure out the grounds, fit the filter in, etc. etc. That way in the morning all I have to do is pour in the water and turn the thing on. Lately, however, my darling little kitten will paw open the coffee maker and eat the coffee grinds. Thanks to her, I have to get up earlier to grind the coffee and do the whole routine.
Some days I get a seriously delicious cup of coffee- I mean out of this world, perfect blend of flavors, just the right amount of sugar and creamer, piping hot... but other days (namely days like today) my coffee maker experiences what I can only describe as an epic.fail. I get to work, and my coffee is lukewarm at best, something tastes bitter and the taste is far too weak. I chalked it up to the coffee being decaff (I'm slowly trying to wean myself away from that wonderful drug). But then I realized, "Well no, it can't be the decaff because the cup I had on Saturday morning at swim practice was decaff and it was perfect.'
How can I explain this travesty? Well for starters, the people who make the coffee pots must be shooting straight caffeine into their veins to make themselves freakin' loopy, or something... I have 4 different coffee makers (don't judge me). One is a Keurig, one is an espresso machine (stop judging!), one is a mini "4 cup" machine, and the last is a 12 cup machine. Have you ever looked at the cup markings on the coffee pots? I don't know in what world the cup designations on my coffee pot are correct, but they certainly don't make sense here in my own little world. I'm not a smurf, or a Keebler elf, nor am I the size of a tiny human child. My mini maker says it brews four cups. It's actually more like two cups. If it were four cups, I'd have to be a 16th of the size I am now to experience any kind of caffeinated effect or to appreciate the taste.
And another thing- some coffee companies say one level tablespoon per ounce of water. Another company will say one heaping tablespoon. I'm sorry, but a heaping tablespoon in my book is more like two real tablespoons. I haven't the foggiest how many ounces are in those "cups" marked on my coffee pot, so how on earth am I supposed to know how much coffee to add? I blame this partially on the snobby idiots who denounced the use of the metric system in the United States. I'm pretty sure my coffee pot counts one cup as 6 ounces. But correct me if I'm wrong- isn't a cup 8 ounces?! If I use my small coffee pot (with the water filled to "4" cups) I will add about 8 or 9 tablespoons of coffee. Mother then yells and carries on... and the coffee still won't taste strong enough to me!
There are things in this world far worse than my ability to make a consistent cup of coffee every morning- but right now, when the real feel temperature is 17 degrees when I leave my house... By Jove I want my cup of coffee, I want it hot, and I want it to taste good! Is that really so much to ask?
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