The elixir of the gods, the day-starter, that amazing cup of Joe! Anyone who knows me at all well knows I love my coffee. I used to drink it from rising in the morning to late evening. No more. Now I can only do three cups of coffee in the morning to get me going or I don’t sleep at night. Makes the morning Joe so much more important.

When I was growing up, coffee in our house was instant – and not for children. My parents and grandparents used to buy Nescafe in the fancy square glass jars with glass lids and a plastic stopper. I still have a number of them at home and use them to keep spices and bulk supplies. They are all 50 + years old and still going strong. Sadly, nowadays one has to buy most things in throwaway containers.

I thought everyone drank instant coffee (which I did not like) until I was an exchange student in the Netherlands after Grade 11 and was introduced to Melita Coffee – the v-shaped filter with a paper liner, a carafe and coffee grounds. My first intro to a coffee that tasted good. When I left home I found myself a Melita set – it came in a green and red box – and I used it for many years, in fact I still have a set at home although I do not use it now as we have a coffee maker and have had for years. The Melita filter cup, filters and coffee have gone on many camping trips with us, though we have now replaced it with a Stanley filter.

When I travelled through Paris as a teenage exchange student, I was very disappointed by the cafe au lait – weak and little coffee taste. An experience repeated when Sahib and I spent a week of our honeymoon in Paris in 1982. Where was the famous “French coffee” I had heard about? I did not find out until assigned to our Paris (France, not Ontario!) offices in 1994 – espresso is where it is at and, boy, is that an eye-opener!

Imagine my surprise when we arrived in India and found all of the hotels supplied little packets of Nescafe instant! This, in the country of South Indian coffee. Travesty! It wasn’t long before we found the South Indian Coffee and Tea company in New Khanna market. Going in was a delight – the smell of freshly roasted coffee, It became where we bought our coffee in New Delhi – and loaded up cartons as we left India to take to Austria!

South Indian Coffee and Tea Co, New Khanna Markeet, New Delhi, ca 1994 – not to mention the wool shop at the right of frame and all of its temptations!

Not being content to stay in Delhi, we headed, at March Break 1995, to South India to Yerchaud, Tamil Nadu, where Sahib’s grandmother was raised after being born in Madras (now Chennai) and toured a coffee plantation and saw coffee growing and toured the processing museum. As we left the hills to Salem, TN, on the plains, we stopped at a coffee roastery and bought some coffee to take back to Delhi with us – and very good it was!

Coffee growing near Yerchaud, Tamil Nadu.

Imagine my surprise when I travelled back to India in 2016 and was delighted to find South Indian coffee widely available – but disappointed to find that the company itself had been bought by Devan’s and the coffee was nowhere nearly as good.

Austria was a coffee wasteland where herbal teas were preferred – I enjoyed some of them but was glad I had my stash of South Indian coffee.

On we went to Jordan where we found, around the corner from us in Amman, a coffee roastery with the familiar rich scent of freshly roasted coffee we had found at the South Indian Coffee and Tea company in Delhi. The owner would occasionally get South Indian coffee but mostly he had Kenyan, Columbian and Yemeni. The Yemeni coffee was not very good but the Kenyan was outstanding and I drank plenty of it.

From Jordan, we headed back to India and were able to get down to Delhi regularly to New Khanna market for our coffee.

For travelling as much and for as long as I did, a knowing friend gave me, about 8 years ago, a Melita style filter, made of stainless steel, with a layer of stainless steel mesh that worked very well for quite a long time but the area between the layers of mesh seems to have been gummed up by coffee oils and now runs as slow as molasses. Hence, the new Stanley filter that comes apart into three parts with a single layer of very fine mesh that can be thoroughly cleaned has replaced it. The knowing friend also gave me, after one trip where I admitted I bought coffee beans rather than ground but without a way to grind them had brought them home, a lovely hand cranked coffee grinder that works a real treat!

Stanley coffee filter and hand cranked coffee grinder – small enough to easily fit in my luggage!

And then, there are some strange brews of coffee. During a trip to the Philippines, to visit the gifter of the melita style coffee filter and beans grinder, I was able to visit a place where they roasted and ground Kopi Luwak. Yup, that is the coffee that is made after travelling through the digestive tract of a civet cat. Some things you just have to try but it was an experience not to be repeated! It simply tasted like very stale coffee that had been left in the air and lacked any of its essential oils.

Needless to say, my joy in making my own coffee means I rarely see the inside of a Timmies or Starbucks or Second Cup. However, I have had occasion to visit one or the other of them – they make a good place to meet up, if nothing else. While I was having a base with my gifter while travelling (sometimes with her, sometimes alone) we had to meet up in Istanbul and chose the Starbucks at Taksim Square as very visible spot to do so!

The view from a sidewalk table at the Starbucks in Taksim Square, Istanbul, Turkey.

And now, here in Belize, about 14 months ago, I found a really good coffee – Gallon Jug Estate coffee, artisanal dark roast, available in beans or pre-ground. A pleasurable eye-opener in the morning, if a tad expensive (but isn’t all coffee expensive now?).

And that is my story and I am sticking to it … with a cup of morning Joe!