Coffee - With or Without?

After I wrote yesterday's post I remembered something else about coffee. When I began drinking coffee in college, I drank it with sugar and milk. It took away the harshness and bitterness of the taste.

When I got into the Army, I continued to drink it the same way until about six months into my career. We were involved in a field exercise that lasted several days. typically, we would have a hot meal brought out to us for breakfast and at night, but the noon meal was usually cold C-rations.

Anyhow, when I would drink my coffee in the morning or at night it was usually dark and we enforced a light blackout; that is, we had no lights on. We would move about with only the ambient light from the moon if there was any.

When I would go through the line with my mess kit it, it was all I could do to handle the food in my kit in my right hand and my canteen cup for coffee with my left. I didn't worry about sugar or milk at that time.

But once I sat down in the darkness I did. I still couldn't drink the coffee without something to take away that bitter taste. Luckily, we got small sugar and powdered milk packets in our C-rations. We'd save them and put them in our field jackets for the early morning and nights when we couldn't see the sugar and milk containers the mess personnel would always put alongside the coffee thermoses.

But it got too cumbersome for me to try to select a sugar packet and a milk packet, and then put both in my coffee, all by feel. So I cut out the milk and found I actually enjoyed the coffee more. And by eliminating the milk, the coffee stayed hotter longer.

I've tried over the years to eliminate the sugar - my wife drinks it black - but found I can't. I enjoy it too much.

We recently bought a new sugar bowl for me. It's part of the Pioneer Woman's collection from Walmart; cheap, but very attractive.

(TNR 12)