Cup of Joe

Hurricane Point
Monday December 11, 2006

I like a few things in life and nothing more than a coffee to start the day. I consider Starbucks to be the Mc Donald’s of coffee. It looks and is marketed to make you think it is good but in reality it tastes dreadful. Luckily there is no Starbucks yet in Ramadi Iraq, and come to think of it there is no Mc Donald’s either.

But we do have the option to brew a coffee in our bunkhouse. On past trips here Producer Greg Johnson ha always managed to rustle up a cup of joe for me even at four am in the morning, so in his brief to our new Producer on this trip Andy Stenner he stressed the importance of feeding me my morning cup of coffee. No doubt with the words of wisdom of “He is not as grumpy if he has caffeine in him”. Greg even went to the trouble of giving Andy a jar of instant coffee and a bag of coffee. But this is where we ran into trouble. Andy does not drink coffee and hence has never had to make a cup.

So at four in the morning on the first day at Hurricane Point in Ramadi, Andy proceeds to make a pot of coffee. With all the best intentions in the world it was undrinkable in a dripolater for 8 cups there must have been ten spoons of coffee. I look back and laugh at just how bad it tasted, even Ollie North could not drink it and he is a former marine and marines can drink any coffee.

In Andy’s defense he admitted this morning that the coffee he made was from Greg’s bag, hang on I said “You mean to tell me that Johnson, gave you this bag of Bonus Blend, who in the hell has ever heard of Bonus Blend”.

The Bonus Blend may of impressed Andy a non-coffee drinker as a good coffee. But for Ollie and I the only place for Bonus blend was the garbage bag. Maybe if you could not read English it may look impressive, but the taste of it defies words.

But then again I like Instant Coffee so who am I to talk. It is the small things on the road that sometimes make you laugh