In case you missed it, catch up with the last post: The Seven Lamps of Prose: Ep. 4 Beauty
I was sitting in a cold, damp field at 6 AM when I first understood coffee. We were on a field exercise with the Army department at VMI. We had spent the night in the woods and woke up covered in frost. We were wet. Our gear was wet. Everything was wet. I was considering what the Washington and Lee students were up to on this Saturday morning. I exhaled little plumes of breath. My good friend (Joe) and I sat on our rucks, huddled together for warmth. He was all too chipper in the morning air.
“Isn’t this great, Johnson,” he said with a goofy, full-hearted smile. He was enjoying every moment of our hurrying, drilling, and romping around in the woods; even the needless waiting didn’t seem to bother him. The whole thing was too important to be taken too seriously. I have always been glad that such friends like Joe are on the front lines. He approached the whole thing with a sincere, selfless, and balanced poise, the stuff that Hemingway wanted to say but couldn’t get out of his own way. Joe had the lightness that accompanies a man of vocation. It was on this trip I realized Joe’s future was not mine, but that’s another story.
Before moving on to the next tedious task, we were given breakfast. This wasn’t the ideal coffee experience. The liquid calling itself coffee was jet-black, scalding, and thin. It left faint, brown rings around the styrofoam cup, waterlines of warmth. They distributed the coffee in those big plastic dispensers and handed us some powdered eggs that used to be hot.
As we curled around the little cups and burnt our mouths, I remember savoring that coffee. It was a gift, a benediction. It welcomed the day. It sharpened my very sense of being alive.
This experience with coffee was a far cry from the fancy-frothed, caramel-infused, skinny, ten-dollar, nitro cold brew, cup of syrup with a touch of espresso. It was black coffee with no frills, not even the frill of being good coffee.
I once asked my grandfather why he took his coffee black. He responded, “Well, one day I just decided: if I’m going to drink it, it’s going to be black.” His statement needed no justification outside its own pronouncement. It somehow cut to the quick.
While nothing more is needed, more can be said. It may not be for you, but here are seven reasons to drink black coffee:
1. No cream, no problem. Black coffee is like bourbon, no additives. You never have to look around for the cream, wonder if it’s expired, search for a preferred brand, or deal with strange Frankenstein creamers such as “Pop-Tart.” You simply pour your cup and move on.
2. Establish better comparisons. When you take your coffee black, your palate will notice the particulars of each cup. The nature of the roast, the origin of the bean, and the quality of the brew stand unadorned. You can see behind secondary accouterments. You can taste excellent coffee for what it is; you can enjoy gas station coffee without pretension. In both cases, you can taste what’s in front of you.
3. Ease of ordering. “A black coffee, please.” Done. One need not learn the esoteric incantations that are chanted into the Starbucks drive-through window.
4. Consistency. One does not encounter the difficulty of proportion with black coffee. In order to get the right amount of cream and sugar, one needs to take into consideration a wide number of variables. You need to gauge the type of cream (dairy, oat, almond), the size of the cup, and the richness of the roast. This often leads to “guestimations” and varying outcomes.
5. Cheap and free refills. The house’s drip coffee will be the cheapest item on the menu and will often include a free refill.
6. Allows others to help. I know my wife’s coffee preferences better than anyone. Still, I often have trouble getting everything squared away. It’s not just a matter of color. A pale brown with half-and-half is wildly different than a pale brown with peppermint mocha. All the variations of creamers and additives, which we are constantly cycling through in our refrigerator or encountering during travel, make the perfect cup illusive. However, a black coffee is hard to mess up.
7. Simplicity.
8. Health. I always prickle when things are defended by their utility qua utility as if one must give account to the specialists looking over your shoulder. But, on top of being a delicious ritual for the contemplation of life and art, black coffee is also linked to positive health benefits.
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Love me some black coffee for all these reasons, especially when fasting, but having worked on a few excellent dairy farms, I've developed an abiding love of great milk (especially raw and with coffee). I'd possit that a flat white is close behind in the simple, healthy, consistent and easy categories for coffee. Perhaps its because I feel I've had a hand in the production of the goods, but a few shots from a decent bean and a half-cup of steamed, creamy milk without froth might just win it for me on most days.
I only recently started drinking my coffee black, and I am surprised how much I have come around to it! The simplicity alone is a good enough reason to convert. I appreciated the comparison of pop tart creamer to a Frankenstein creation, even though I still dream about those delicious fake pastries as a gluten free adult. They’d probably pair well with a black cup of joe. :)