Coffee Club

Day 140

If you have been following this blog since it's beginning, these are some patterns you may have noticed about me. I spend quite a bit of time in grocery stores. I'm not afraid to pick up trash if I'm desperate for a kind act. And I am a frequent customer in coffee shops.

I like coffee. A lot. I'm actually a bit of a coffee “snob” some might say. Well, “some” being my husband. I like strong coffee that melts your back teeth and I will go out of my way to find some if I must.

Today at work, it occurred to me that, in my quest to make sure I always have access the perfect brew, I was excluding others. I work in a fairly small office, about 20 or so employees. The building is small. There is a kitchen where the main coffee pot is kept on one end and my office suite is on the other, probably around 100 feet or so apart. In my suite we have a coffee pot too, with a secret stash of fresh ground dark roast that we share among a very few of us. The assumption has been that we lovers of strong coffee are in the the minority, no one else would have interest in our bitter brew.

But perhaps, I realized today, there may be others in the office who find the kitchen coffee akin to dishwater too. Suddenly, I felt like we were the Caffeine Mean Girls. I sent out an all staff email, inviting any and all to join our Coffee Snob Club, members need only contribute a pound of coffee monthly (a roast that met our high standards of course, Maxwell House and Folgers lovers need not apply).

By the end of the day, we had gained one new member, swelling our ranks to four. I'm not expecting many more, as I still do believe the majority of the staff prefer a milder (weak, as we say in our club) coffee. Today, we may have ended our exclusiveness by opening up to other members, but we will never open up our tastes to inferior coffee.