Hi, this is Chris Hubs.

I don’t know why you’re listening to this, but since you are, let’s talk about coffee.

I didn’t get an early start as a coffee drinker.

I know college is viewed as that time when everybody should be getting into coffee.

I was a dedicated soda drinker in college, for whatever that’s worth.

If I remember my first experience with coffee, it was in high school and it probably wasn’t great.

Thought I’d try some, and it was at some church event, and I’m sure the coffee was over-warmed and burned and cheap and lousy to start with, and that kept me off of it for at least another 15 years.

Well into my adult work life, I was still a soda guy.

I had a 52-ounce giant insulated mug for fountain beverages that I could stop on the way to work at a convenience store and refill for less than a dollar back in the day, and way too much Pepsi consumption there.

At some point I realized all that sugar was going to get to me, and I switched to Diet Pepsi, and I mean, great, but maybe not great.

I don’t know.

All that to say, at some point I decided I need to switch over and drink coffee because coffee was something that was available in the office more easily.

And so I just gave it a shot and I said, Okay, good enough.

Now, I’m not a milk or cream or sugar guy with my coffee.

First, they’re a hassle.

Second, I’m not really a milk person anyway.

So coffee, if it’s going to be coffee in my head, you drink it black, and that’s just the way I drink it.

I have, on a very rare occasion, ordered a coffee drink with milk in it.

The last time I can think of that was when I was in Germany and didn’t really know what I was ordering off of the German menu.

I got it with milk in it.

I could drink the first few sips, and when it started to cool off and I could really taste the milk, I had to go back and find something else to order.

My normal coffee routine now that I’m in a work-from-home mode is making a pot first thing in the morning.

I get beans from my local roaster.

I’ve got a grinder here.

I grind around, throw them in my coffee maker, which is currently a Technivorm Moccamaster, which is sort of drip coffee, sort of pseudo pour-over.

Makes a really nice cup of coffee, and I’m happy with it.

In my previous work-from-home days during COVID, I had a—I’m going to forget the brand now—but I had a thermal carafe that I would just take down to my basement office with me, so it sat there, and I didn’t even have to get up to refill my coffee.

My office has moved to our upstairs now, and so I don’t have that thermal carafe anymore, and so I have to actually walk out to the kitchen to refill my coffee mug, which is probably good because it lets me stretch my legs as well.

But yeah, is a pot of coffee a morning better than 52 ounces of Diet Pepsi?

I don’t know, and that’s a question I’m probably not really wanting to think about any harder than that, because my coffee is certainly a useful thing to help me get going in the morning.

I suppose the alternative is actually more sleep, but, yeah, you know, here we are, and it’s coffee.

The roughest mornings are when I realize that I finished up my coffee beans the previous day and I don’t have any more in store, and so then I need to actually head up to the coffee shop that roasts the beans, and usually that ends up being a double-dip morning because I’ll get an Americano while I’m up there, and then I’ll get a pound of beans and bring them home and actually still make myself a pot of coffee.

If I’m not going to drink just regular brewed coffee, it is Americanos.

I kind of judge the coffee shops I visit based on the quality of their Americano, and I still think the best Americano I can remember having was from a coffee trailer parked in a strip mall parking lot somewhere in the North Seattle area.

At least a decade ago, when I move to the Seattle area next year, I’m going to have to do my tour of coffee places and see if I can figure out what’s really good there.

Or maybe I’ll just have to become more of a coffee snob and figure out my own esoteric brewing methods.

But it feels like a lot of work, and I’m happy to settle for something slightly less than amazing coffee if it’s easy and I can put it together before I’m really awake to think about it in the morning.

Well, I’ve got one cup of coffee left to drink this morning, so hopefully this talk was coherent, and we’ll talk later.