Coffee tragedy

If you've been reading this blog very long, or know my wonderful wife very well, then you know she is a coffee aficionado. (Who am I kidding, she's a downright coffee snob and an addict.) Judy really, really, really, really...likes her coffee in the morning--or any other time of the day, for that matter. (She's not coffee-time prejudiced.) She also enjoys quality coffee (thus the "coffee snob" comment). Her coffee m.o. is to grind the beans just before adding said grounds to the pot and producing her special brew. To grind the beans earlier is to loose some the flavor. In a pinch, she will use ground coffee, but it's just not the same.

Judy has been rubbing off on our precious Brigitte. Brig is no where near the coffee snob status of her mom, but she's working on it. Living is China has created a challenge for Brigitte and her ever-expanding coffee-loving taste buds because the Chinese are BIG on tea. Never-the-less, she has discovered where to find java beans and she also has her own grinder. Kevin gave her a one-cup portable coffee maker for the trips they make to the countryside. Judy was thrilled to see this because we were planning to make a trip to the country the day after Christmas--which we did. (This is all set-up to the story of the tragedy.)

We traveled to the country village (the village only has a population of 60,000, a trivial sized populace in a country with the population of 1.3 billion) with said coffee maker stowed securely in our luggage. Judy packed the coffee. Since it was only a two-day trip, Judy was settling for ground coffee and the grinder was left at home. (Bear with me, dear reader, the plot will thicken immediately.)

Sunday morning I awakened to--not a blood-curdling scream--a pathetic "Oh no." Being the doting husband that I am, I rolled over on my board--err, bed (don't get me started on the Chinese concept of a bed: a concrete slab with a layer of cardboard for the mattress; see, I warned you about getting me started), pulled the cover over my eyes and attempted to return to my cardboard covered concrete back-cracking cyatic arousing coma. The next thing I remember is hearing a whap, whap, whap, whap sound. Thinking that the construction workers next door had inflitrated our room, I sprang to my feet (as quickly as a cardboard covered concrete back-cracking cyatic arousing comatose old fat guy can spring--you get the picture)to block the door. There were no construction workers in our room. Here's what I discovered.

In our busyness of getting ready to catch the 11:45 bus to said village, Judy had grabbed a box of Gevilia coffee, not noticing that it was whole beans, not ground coffee. (I'm almost of the opinion that she just can't bring herself to handle ground coffee and it was a Freudian thing she did.) Since we hadn't carried the grinder with us, we had a problem: a coffee addict with a coffee maker but whole beans with no grinder. (Picture the scene from Apollo 13 and Tom Hanks announcing, "Houston, we have a problem" and you get the sense of what was happening in our room.) So Judy, in her coffee-deprived but not to be coffee-denied state, took an empty M & M's bag, placed the whole beans inside the bag, then began beating the bean-bag with a drinking glass. She was determined to somehow grind her beans to make her coffee. I attempted to help her. It was a pathetic attempt to provide relief to her craving for scalding hot liquid caffine.

NOTE TO READERS: Coffee beans beaten in an M & M bag by a drinking glass will not be smashed to a consistency equal to that of beans ground in an actual grinder.

Needless to report, the smashed-not-ground beans made a liquid beverage that was nothing like coffee. It was a sad, sad, sad day in the China village. In recognition of our tragedy, the hotel lowered the Chinese flag to half staff. We found instant (can you imagine) Vietnamese coffee in a store next to the hotel. The beverage it produced caused Judy to burn the half-staff posted flag.

Here's the lesson for all to learn. When traveling with only a one-cup brewer and no grinder to a city or village near you (which doen't sell whole beans), make sure the coffee you pack is ground. Life will be better for all.