Last week I experimented with Folger’s Coffee Singles. Other than the coffee tasting really bad, it was a success. So, I tracked down my coffee grinder, brewing device, left-over filters, and went shopping for beans. After a trip to the mall (we didn’t just go for beans), I was ready to begin my education, as the brew-master. First I did some research. I looked into grind quality (course v. fine), water temperatures, and bean to water ratios. I settled on a fine grind (widely preferred for drip methods of brewing – as I would be employing) and four tablespoons of beans per cup. If you are familiar with coffee brewing you know that four tablespoons is an awful lot of beans for one cup. And you know what? It is.

Adam has been sick the last few days, and this has meant we’ve had fewer hours to sleep. Sunday was my crash, the day when consecutive nights of little sleep caught up with me. It was beginning to look like we picked the wrong morning to go to church. It was then that I decided on my bean to water ratio. Several of the serious coffee drinkers on the web suggested two tablespoons of beans per cup, but I kept thinking of my Jolt Cola inspired, twice the sugar added, Kool-Aid concoctions from my childhood.

Twice the coffee beans are the same as twice the sugar in Kool-aid, right? No, it isn’t.

Hopped up Kool-Aid may help children defy gravity for a little while, but it can’t touch the toe curling experience of putting down a strong cup of coffee. Quite by accident, I learned that my cup of Super Joe also makes a superb engine degreaser. This morning I tried it with just two. Despite the inherent advantages of having engine degreaser on hand in an office setting, I think I may stick with just two from now on.

I’ve decided that it’s not a good idea to take pharmaceutical grade caffeine on a regular basis. However, a single cup of merely mortal coffee isn’t doing the trick either. Enter John’s official “hair-brained scheme of the day.”

The idea goes something like this,
Pills deliver too much too quickly and a cup of joe (as brewed by my office mates) delivers too little too slowly. So, I’ll brew my own special blend. However, being a frugal civil servant I don’t want to invest in the kind of capital that self-brewing “right” will require. So, I’ll do a little experimentation on the cheap with “Folger’s Coffee Singles.”

My little false start can be blamed on the marketing folks at Folgers. The color green generally means “go.” It’s the color of springtime, of fresh new beginnings, and of growth. Red on the other hand means “stop.” It’s the color of warning, of danger, and of “turn around and go back.” When I’m tired, or in other words, when I most need coffee as God intended, I gotta go with the green baby. It’s go time. Only, it wasn’t, not with a “green” coffee single. In Folger speak, green means DECAF. You know how I feel about decaf, so I’ll spare you the censored obscenities. Fortunately I noticed my error before I left the house.

Which means I’ve probably used up my quota of good fortune for the week. Good thing it’s Friday.

At work I took my little red packet of magic, read the instructions, then did something else entirely. No, I didn’t rip open the package and swallow the grounds whole. The instructions called for soaking the bag of grounds for fifteen seconds. So, I figured a minute and a half sounded about right.

So far, so good. I’ve never been so fleet of finger on the keys.