Searching for Starbucks

Some years ago, troubled by a newly-acquired craving, I asked a colleague on the Randolph-Macon Woman's College Board of Trustees whether she thought excessive consumption of coffee might be harmful. Without a moment's hesitation, displaying the elegant phraseology which I had come to admire during our brief acquaintance, she replied, "That, my friend, is the most benign of vices."

With recent evidence suggesting that one's life expectancy can be extended by ingesting five cups a day and probably not materially affected by indulging in as many as twenty-five, the question arises: what took me so long to appreciate the bean's pleasures?

One can always blame one's parents, whom I never saw leisurely chatting over a morning cuppa joe. Somehow I breezed through high school and occasional all nighters in college with nary a thought of a caffeine-induced energizer, since most peer pressure focused on consuming concoctions made of sterner stuff. I do remember a distaste for coffee originating out of its being the only liquid available at a football game I attended at a neighboring institution and finding it totally unsuitable as a thirst quencher on a hot day.

I don't recall another cup of coffee for thirty-five years -- in spite of innumerable dinner dates, early morning breakfast meetings, and long airplane rides, during all of which gracious servers would display a pronounced quizzical expression in response to my firm "No Thank You," before I learned to upend my coffee cup, thereby politely avoiding any discomforting repartee.

Ironically enough, during this long period of resistance, I did learn to make coffee, from the grounds, of course, not the beans. My former wife required a cup of coffee in the morning before she could function properly, and thus it became my duty as the earlier riser to brew and bring her a bedside cup. One may deduce an ulterior motive to my obsequiousness, as there were many mornings when I wanted her awake, alert, energetic, and responsive to my attentions.

One disastrous experience had me thoroughly convinced that I was destined to live out my remaining days a coffee abstainer. After eighteen hours on an airplane flight from Egypt and a three-hour wait for baggage, my wife and I found ourselves stranded at snowbound JFK airport at 2:00 AM with no hope of a room or a flight out the next day. We rented a car for the eight-hour drive home, and in order to stay awake, at the first convenient rest stop I ordered the largest cup of coffee on the menu. I pulled onto the highway, and, not really knowing how to drink a cup of coffee, I impatiently tilted the cup back and took a healthy swallow. Actually unhealthy, as I spectacularly scalded my lips, mouth, and tongue. I never knew what the coffee tasted like; in fact, I couldn't taste anything for ten days, the time it took for my singed membranes to heal.

But it was only six months later that my life changed forever. I was attending a special called meeting of the Randolph-Macon Woman's College (now Randolph College) Board of Trustees in Washington, D.C., at the Center for Higher Education, when, in the midst of a very important discussion concerning the future of the College, I began to doze. I realized that it would be very embarrassing to fall out of my chair or for my head to thud resoundingly on the table. In desperation my eye was drawn to a large aluminum urn beckoning from the back of the room. I surreptitiously glided that way, and poured myself a cup of coffee. Returning to my seat, I felt rejuvenated, quickened, and infatuated by the flavor, enough to chance a second cup.

What had I been missing all these years? At the ripe of fifty-five, out of the blue, I joined the masses, tantalized by the aroma, hooked by the taste, especially the taste of that first sip, in which are swirled together the incongruous elements of bitter sweetness, chocolate vanilla, and dry refreshment, and then reeled in by the stimulative effect.

I am still a novice. I can't distinguish various beans, roasts, or blends. I just know what I like, and I'm not going to waste my drinking on some dirty brown sludge that's deemed coffee simply because it's hot and "brewed fresh daily." I always drink it black; I don't see the point of adulterating this scintillating flavor with products that, frankly, are not very healthy.

Since my ex-wife had taken her coffee maker upon her departure, it wasn't long before I discovered Starbucks. Purists may turn their noses up, but I like it for the consistency (except at airports) and the fullness. I avoid sweets and dairy products, so I don't partake of cream, sugar, lattes, cappuccinos, frappes, chocolate chip brownies, or two-tone pound cake -- although they all look irresistible -- nor do I understand all the hisses, fizzes, stirring, pouring, and commotion as I wait impatiently for a simple cup of black coffee, although one has to admire the marketing genius who created $5 entrees out of this universal commodity and a chain of lifestyle restaurants to purvey them to eager consumers.

Some of the best coffee I've had is prepared at the White Hart, an unobtrusive cafe located on Main Street in Downtown Lynchburg across from the City Market. While transitioning through three ownership changes, its quality has not been compromised; the founder still supervises the hand-roasting process. When his business acumen failed to measure up to his brewing skills, a local entrepreneur stepped in, and with the help of Crowdfunding resurrected the establishment, put it on sound financial footing, and subsequently sold it to one of his managers.

Raising prices, eliminating a self-service option, and distilling a selection that formerly featured beans from Columbia, Peru, Brazil, and Nicaragua into the aptly-named Poplar Forest dark roast have no doubt improved sustainability. Competing against a proliferation of Downtown dining establishments, the White Hart's tasty brew, uniquely primitive atmosphere, wifi availability, and all-day breakfast and sandwich menu have enabled it to attract a steady stream of college students and a handful of loyal local patrons. It's my favorite venue for a lunch tete-a-tete, not only because it's convenient and quiet and serves fare I heartily recommend, but also because I would really miss it were it no longer around.

As my habit rapidly evolved into a compulsion and I increased my dosage from one cup every two days to one a day and now sometimes two or more, usually on weekends or when I'm at the bridge table or on vacation, the White Hart became my regular morning destination for "a small coffee to go." Unlike most other addicts I have encountered, I don't require a caffeine kick immediately upon waking; I prefer to postpone my gratification until after I have worked out and digested my daily double of Raisin Bran or Special K and a banana. I have yet to understand how one can eat a meal and drink coffee simultaneously without the latter cooling to an unpalatable temperature.

I derive the most pleasure from coffee by drinking a cup when I set out on a long drive -- usually in the morning, but sometimes in the late afternoon. I settle in, facing an hour or more on the road, wait ten minutes for the coffee to cool below the scalding level, take that first sip, savor the taste, and feel both relaxed and stimulated, my senses alert to the highway, my mind lost amidst myriad thoughts and musings or soothed by soft rock music or the idle chatter of talk radio.

Imagine the surprise of my two furniture buyers when, after traveling the route together from our hotel in Greensboro to the High Point Furniture Market seven days twice a year for fifteen years with little conversation and certainly no detours, I asked them to pull into the Starbucks at the grandiose Furnitureland South store one crisp October morning. "I need to get my morning cup of coffee," I said, and in short order it became a ritual, so religiously observed that for Christmas a year later they presented me with a Keurig Machine.

Intimidated by the prospect of assembling the thing, I let the box sit it my kitchen unopened for about a month before my son Matt spotted it while visiting me. "I'll never use it," I said to him. "Why don't you take it home?"

"Dad," he said, "if there's any one who needs to be able to fix one cup of coffee, it's you. I'll set it up." Which he proceeded to do in about five minutes. Of course, this wasn't good news for the White Hart (or various Starbucks) as now -- after a trip to the Y Express, a shower, and breakfast -- I'm able to imbibe my not-so-guilty pleasure in the comfort of my home. After sifting through a wide assortment of supermarket brands, I finally settled on Green Mountain Dark Magic as offering a taste the closest to a real cup of coffee.

It's a vast improvement over the erroneously labeled "caffe americano" one finds in European hotels and restaurants, a bland gruel that emerges from the dilution of espresso with hot water. It took me about two swallows to realize that this concoction was intolerable and to convert me into an aficionado of unadulterated espresso (actually double espresso) -- at least for ten days, the length of most of my trips abroad, after which sipping from those miniature cups becomes quite annoying and I begin to yearn for some good old home brew.

With the benignity of coffee an established fact, what inherent vice could my friend have been referring to in her elegant epigram? I never pursued the point, but after reflecting upon it, I believe the answer lies with the term "coffee break." Before the advent of laptops, smartphones, and tablets, was there any more trivial way of deferring an activity, interrupting the work flow, or simply wasting time than slowly savoring that first, second, or third cup of the day?

I am reminded of a tale told by a friend who on one of his first days on the job as a rookie hospital administrator was reprimanded by his boss for bringing a cup of coffee to an early morning meeting. "From now on," he was sternly admonished, "please drink your coffee before coming to work."

That's a prescript more honored in the breach than the observance, as I can personally attest to. When asked by a cable service salesman some years ago what I actually did at my place of employment (Schewels), I responded: "After working out at the Y and scarfing down my breakfast, I drive ten minutes to downtown, walk one block to the White Hart Cafe, order a cup of coffee, go back to my office, sit down at my desk, wait for the phone to ring, and if someone has a question, I try to answer it."

If its leisurely enjoyment is the most severe condemnation we can apply to coffee, I hope to make the case that another benign practice may be even more non-productive than an occasional coffee break and thus more deserving to be labeled a vice. Because what I really want to talk about today is not coffee; it's compulsive reading, especially of popular fiction.