In the groove.

COFFEE: Colombian Supremo from What's Brewing? roaster.

MUG: A "naval-style" mug of undetermined origin. Great heft, lip, bite, and capacity. This example was sent to me by a friend in Seattle who knows I also love vinyl LPs.

NOTES: Sometimes I wonder if I'm in a rut because I always drink coffee made with this bean, but I really like it (made strong). Wine-y, oak-y, cocoa-y, chewy. Great stuff. So it's more a groove than a rut... and lots of caffeine certainly helps me spin.

Litespeed coffee cup

COFFEE: The Colombian Supremo of comfort, habit and preference (but not an especially good run/roast).

MUG: A double-wall titanium back-packing/camping mug from REI. Made in Japan (and priced accordingly). Titanium is very lightweight compared to steel, and stronger than aluminum (so it can be thinner and save weight... a big deal for back-packers and cyclo-tourists). It also conducts heat better than the other materials mentioned, so this mug has silicon sleeves on the folding handles to protect the fingers, and a silicon lid (not shown in photo) to protect the lips. Titanium is also flavorless.

NOTES: An item of desire met. Notice the coffee drips on the handles, the result of my sloshing the coffee. The hot coffee on the cedar plank "coaster" released a surprising amount of cedar aroma in the pre-dawn hour.

More craft, less art, please.

MUG: Mosaic slab construction mug, the mate to the mug seen in the previous post. "A porous coffee cup" isn't the same thing as "Pour us a cup of coffee". It leaks (no cracks).

COFFEE: Not wanting to waste good coffee, I made a single cup of Starbucks™ VIA® Ready Brew. It's the premium instant coffee ready brew coffee that comes in little tubular single-serve packets, a sample of which came in yesterday's newspaper (told you I was a Luddite). What does it taste like? Premium priced instant coffee.

NOTES: Double fail.

Roll 'em easy

COFFEE: The usual (Colombian Supremo), ground immediately prior to brewing, roasted some time in the past.

MUG: An artsy-crafty mug made by a potter in Denton, Texas (former GF of my brother-in-law). Three piece slab-construction, with different-colored stratified clay rolled into a sheet, and the bottom punched out and a handle formed. The sheet is then rolled into a tube, and affixed to the base. A clear glaze is applied inside the cup (for liquid seal), and some decorations are applied to the outside. This is part of a set (two mugs and a creamer).

NOTES: Form over function, and nicer as an object than as a utensil. It drinks well, though, and has a nice tactile feel to the mug barrel, with the smooth glaze covering the lip. The handle is too narroe for me, but it does have a nice thumb indent at the top of the handle where it meets the mug barrel.

Stay tuned for Part Two.