Coffee Varieties

This week I can probably start each day with a different variety of coffee.  Some sales on K-cups left me with a supply of Martinson's, Breakfast Blend, Donut Shop Blend, and French Roast.  I have bags of Starbucks Verona Blend and Lavazza Italian Intense, and some coffee ordinaire, either Chock Full of Nuts or Folgers, I'd have to look.  And I have beans of a Hawaiian Blend which are probably long out of date.

To make them I have a Keurig Express, a k-cup adapter, two functional French presses, and a Melitta cone.  They can be lightened with powder, milk, or heavy cream.  And I have sweeteners and flavorings that I hardly ever use.

That's more choices than the coffee shops, which generally only offer three plus a decaf, though WaWa expands this.  There's the optimal number of choices.  From the coffee shop, I can get only one.  At home, over the course of the morning, more typically I choose two, sometimes a third later in the day, so there are advantages to the expanded options.  But unlike the coffee shops, I buy my k-cups cheap and on sale, so none of the blends approach gourmet, though my bagged coffee, always preground and on sale, does.

Coffee has become one of my morning pleasures, more a staple than a luxury, but elevated by the variety.  It has an element of function, fulfilled by Chock Full of Nuts or Folgers from a can, which I still keep available.  Cafeterias and diners around the world serve what their owners choose, regular or decaf.  And as a coffee novice learning to brew in my orange electric percolator during my college years, I was not selective either.  And in a sense, I'm still not very selective, defaulting to what I can buy for a discount.  But the various blends really are different in taste, though common in getting perked up for the rest of the day.