Sunday, March 20, 2005


missive from the mainland

this suburb of boston where i am ensconced for the week -- omigod, i'm trapped on the mainland far away from the nice pakistani men who ferry me about in lincoln town cars and where people are happy to deliver anything at anytime to your door -- doesn't even have a mermaid.

dunkin is the height of coffee here, to which i ride in the hotel shuttle, since, as long-time bccy readers know, i don't personally drive.

now i understand why the hotel clerk told me over the phone to bring my own coffee. which i of course did: scaa board member and roasters guild bigwig mike ebert's coffee masters ethiopian harrar/java blend, newly available in my local garden of eden.

of course, i support scaa pro members 100%. but i have to say that even without opening this nice package, i am a tad depressed as a consumer with this coffee.

there is no roast-dating! i have no idea when this coffee was roasted, altho' the package assures me that coffee masters has "midwestern family values" and is packed with "the latest 'stay-fresh' technology."

that's great to know, but honestly, honestly, i don't care if the sweet people at coffee masters are divorced, laudanum-addicted, libertine worshippers of astarte at this moment -- is your coffee fresh? that's the only thing i want to demand of the rather indiana-jones-looking guy on the label.

with all due respect, i expect more of a member of the guild. there is a mysterious white tag on the back of the bag reading "2 24 5," which i am pessimistically assuming is the date this coffee was shipped.

that would make it not quite a month old, which i freely confess means it is fresher than any illy i could get my hands on. it would be much worse for me if it was actually a "use by" date.

however, i'll never know. because they haven't seen fit to tell me.

i don't mean at all to be harsh on coffee masters here. they are part of the "good guys," i'm on their side.

but it's precisely because i know they are "one of us" that i have higher standards for them!

anyway, now all i have to do is figure out how to boil water around here. . .and see if the local gym offers yoga classes or something in the evening. . .

posted by fortune | 6:02 PM | top | link to this | email this: | | | 0 comments