Sore loser

MUG: Chinese manufactured stoneware mug from M Design (Museum?), very thick and heavy. Design is meant to imitate an enameled steel camp mug, but this ceramic monster is far easier on the lips, with no burn from the heat transmission common to enameled cups.

COFFEE: Hot Ibarra Mexican cocoa. Just a touch of cinnamon makes this an exceptional treat.

NOTES: This mug came from the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum, and has been featured here before. The post title refers to both the quotation from Davy Crockett, and to the tendinitis in my arm and elbow.

The plate in the background was purchased by my parents in a Taos, New Mexico art gallery because the image reminded them of my sister, June Ann Summer.

From the country of 1100 springs

MUG: Bell-shaped stoneware mug made in China, purchased from The Dollar Store. Perfectly acceptable 11 ounce design with good functionality. If it had a green mermaid on it, it would have cost $9.50 instead of the $1 my wife paid for it. See note below.

COFFEE: A darker-roast Guatemalan marketed as “organic”, as purchased from HEB.

NOTE: The coffee is much better tasting today (but still not to my standards of taste), due to using Ozarka spring water instead of the chemical and mineral heavy tap water from the City of Kyle. People in Dallas don't realize how great the tap water is there (at least the water sourced from Dallas Water Utilities).

My wife bought me this mug at The Dollar Store in Kyle because we appear to have left the box containing all our coffee mugs back in Dallas. We will be making a 36 hour trip to Dallas today to fetch said box (and a few others). The Exodus continues, though I am certain it won't take 40 years (but 40 days is a possibility).

Getting a grip on change

MUG: CenTury™branded double-wall ceramic travel mug, hecho en China. The travel cup has a nice trumpet-flare opening (dribble resistant), 16 12 ounce capacity, and comes with a silicone non-slip burn-resistant gripper and drink-through cap.

COFFEE: 3:5 blend of What's Brewing Colombian and Organics* Guatemalan. Improved from the straight Guatemalan I had yesterday, but this is the last of my Colombian. I must admit all complaints about coffee flavor are unfair until I get some better water. The Kyle muniwasser is heavily laden with chemicals (added) and minerals (naturally sourced). 

NOTES: This is, in some ways, the most expensive coffee mug I have. It (and a companion travel mug trimmed in pink silicone) was a housewarming gift to my wife and I from our Realtor as a thank-you gift for finally buying a house she showed us. She also gave us a nice bottle of brut sparkling wine from New Mexico, and a suspect bag of gourmet coffee beans roasted in Austin, “specially blended for iced coffee, with rich chocolate flavors”. Hazmat coffee, or will I be pleasantly surprised? Stay tuned.

*Organics is just a guess. I don't recall the actual name, but it's of that vein.

Frontier Outpost: Jack Coffee Hays edition

MUG: German stoneware beer stein, .25 liter capacity.

COFFEE: Organically-grown Guatemalan coffee, dark roast. Bitter, not better.

NOTES: Nice, heavy little mug, with a colorful shovel head on the front. A bit of a dribbler, due to the narrowing opening. Lip positioning is important with this design.

The coffee is a newly-sourced variety that I won't be revisiting after the .75 pound I purchased is exhausted. A search for a new supplier of good coffee begins now, as my old stand-by (Colombian Supremo from Central Market/What's Brewing) is no longer available to me locally.

SPECIAL NOTE: This is the first post from my new home in Hays County, Texas. Hays County was named after legendary Texas Ranger Captain Jack Coffee Hays, who also has the distinction of being the founder of the city of Oakland California. That might explain a lot about Oakland.

Stirred, not shaken (but pressed).

MUG: SYM-12 design, unknown origin restaurant service mug.

COFFEE: House Blend pressed coffee, fresh ground, fair-trade.

NOTES: As served at Stir Coffee, which is part of Good 2 Go Taco (recently reopened in the 'hood). Nice sediment at the bottom of the cup. A little on the light side, flavor and viscosity wise.

Vintage coffee drinker.

MUG: Blue-Striped stoneware mug I found at Goodwill. Good drinker, although the handle is cramped, and the rim is just a bit of a "dribble rim". The design imitates a butter-churn.

COFFEE: Colombian Supremo from Central Market/What's Roasting. The CC was a bit stale (despite the vacuum coolness), so I went back to my base. My base has gotten $2 a pound more expensive.

NOTES: Hand-thrown, and signed "Lawrence Houston", with the stamp "Sr. Potter" on the bottom. I have no idea where it came from. It's a commercial product, in a rustic style that I can't explain. Here locally we had Love Field Pottery that made stuff like this in the 1930s-40s, and Marshall Pottery in East Texas still does. Lot's of hazing in the glaze (almost raku-like).

Too hot to handle?

COFFEE: Community Coffee™ Private Reserve Colombia Altura. CC's Private Reserve bulk line is dispensed whole bean out of vacuum containers. When you open the chute, an airlock hisses. When you close the chute, a vacuum pump removes air. Not bad stuff.

MUG: Single-wall ceramic handle-less mug (11 ounces), with a silicon travel top. Made in China for Borders™ Books and Lifestyle Accessories.

NOTES: The mug body gets pretty warm due to the single-wall construction, but not too warm (although I imagine pouring boiling water into the mug might change that). Good sipper, with and without the silicon cover. Handsome design with the white interior and the dark brown (java?) exterior. Worth the $4.99 after Christmas sale price. 

P.S. I also got a 2' tall black artificial  “Christmas” tree to make my American Mid-Winter Pagan Civic Holiday decoration out of for next year (celebrating a combination of Halloween, Thanksgiving, Santa Claus, and the New Year).

Foaming at the mouth.

MUG: Unknown manufacturer (China) and designer (USA). Basic bistro-mug design. Roomy handle, slightly wobbly base.

COFFEE: Community Coffee Reserve Espresso made as a cappuccino. Cocoa-chili powder dusting.

NOTES: One side of the mug has eleven names laser-etched into the stoneware. The other side simply has the name above all names etched into it.

New Year's Day

 

COFFEE: Community Coffee Reserve Espresso Roast. Burr-ground to a powder, stamped, expressed. Good.

MUG: A Bodum double-walled espresso shot glass.

NOTES: To Jim. Vaya con Dios, amigo.

Christmas

 

MUGS: Waechtersbach classic mugs, Made In W. Germany. One winter themed (for my wife), one Christmas themed with cat theme bonus (for my mother-in-law), and one natural/mud colored (for me). Perfection in mugs.

COFFEE: Organically-grown Colombian Supremo, San Antonio-roasted, medium roast beans, purchased yesterday during the Exodus to Central Market. Burr-ground for cone drip.

NOTES: Merry Christmas!

I don't play like Robert Johnson

MUG: Unknown country of origin (I should have looked, but you know the old joke about turning over a coffee cup), but branded Illy, and designed by Matteo Thun in Milan, founder of the Memphis Design Group. Nice ceramic heft and lip, but a poor handle that appears to be an Illy trademark (circle shape only allows one finger, and is uncomfortable due to the mug's weight). Probably works better for an espresso cup, not a mug. An example of anti-Bauhaus design (form leading function).

COFFEE: Illy dark roast. Brewed correctly and fresh. A superior cup of coffee.

NOTES: Breakfast at Crossroads Diner on Walnut Hill Lane near Presbyterian Hospital and the DART rail station. The grits and pancakes came from Heritage Homestead (a Christian agrarian community near Waco), and the chorizo from a local vendor. Good stuff.




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Blown away.

MUG: Not. Mexican hand-blown glass.

COFFEE: Not. Buffalo Trace bourbon.

NOTES: This glass was a gift from my parents, deceased now an average of twenty years. It's a wonderful vessel for spirits, as were they for the Spirit. 

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How to make a better cup of coffee on the road.

MUG: Double-walled stainless steel French-press travel mug. It get's too hot to hold, so I added a beer bottle sleeve. 

COFFEE: Cafe Olé prepackaged Colombian Bucaramanga Supremo from the H.E.B. in Odessa. 

NOTES: I use the hotel's in-room coffee maker to heat the water, pour it over the grounds in my French Travel Press, wait four minutes, and then press and drink. The little coffee packet says it contains enough coffee for a "perfect pot", which in my case means one mug.

Happy un-Camper!

 

MUG: German-made Waechtersbach "happy man" mug, possessing all the virtues and qualities of Waechtersbach coffee mugs that I have extolled in the past. Simply the world's best commercially-made mugs (speaking for the ones made in Germany).

COFFEE: Fresh ground at O'dark thirty from Colombian Supremo medium roast beans, sourced from Central Market. Familiarity breeds contentment.

NOTES: After several days of on and off travel (with a couple more yet to come), staying in other people's homes, historic hotels, and run-down motels, and eating in restaurants and with hosts, it's indescribably wonderful to be home, enjoying a pot of my coffee. Strong stuff, and soul satisfying (combined with morning temperatures in the mid-50s). I'm home, and I'm happy to be here. I like it here.

Lodging my observations.

MUG: A USA made (I forgot the manufacturer) china naval mug. Heavy, thick-rimmed, wonderful mug, worthy of a robust, manly brew. A champion "big finger" mug.

COFFEE: Thin diner-brew coffee, perfectly typical of what's served nationwide, totally devoid of all the characteristics that make coffee more than simply a habitual breakfast beverage. The coffee is supplied by DeCoty Coffee in San Angelo, and is served all over West, Texas. The coffee itself may be fine, but the accepted brew-strength is just pathetic.

NOTES: This example was obtained at the Black Bear Restaurant at Indian Lodge Resort in the Davis Mountains state park, close to the McDonald Observatory. You gotta love a restaurant that serves grilled liver-and-onions, and has both black bear and mountain lion warnings posted on the door.

Whoa Nellie.

MUG: Commercial diner mug by Buffalo. Sort of a Mid-Century Modern design. Odd "contemporary" handle shape, really nice decorative band.

COFFEE: Big Blend coffee from Big Bend Coffee Roasters as served at Nel's Coffee Shop in Ft. Davis, Texas. Brewed too weak (standard diner strength), so there's no way to tell if the coffee's any good.

NOTES: Nel's is connected to The Bookfeller used book store, both physically and by marriage. Good breakfast, however.

Limping on.

MUG: Paper cup. What can I say?

COFFEE: Hotel Limpia House Blend, from Big Bend Coffee Roasters. Good body, brewed stronger than one might expect, but a slight undertone of 'sweetness' that I find unnecessary.

NOTES: Waiting in the empty lobby at 5:30 a.m. Drinking it on the Hotel Limpia's front porch. An altogether nice way to start the morning.

Debris field

MUG: Paper cup, with a plastic lid and a corrugated paper sleeve. I forgot to remove it, and so the aromatic and tactile experience was diminished considerably.

COFFEE: Starbucks™ Anniversary Blend. Touted as "bold and spicy", I found it thin and underwhelming.

NOTES: The debris field represents my using a Starbucks™ as my early morning home away from home in Tulsa. A plastic cup of water (the best thing I had there), the wrapper from my apple-spice muffin, an empty pill bottle that held my vitamins and prescription meds, a used, tightly folded paper napkin (as is my habit), and the coffee.

Am I the only one who is noticing a thinning of the brew-strength at Starbucks™? This has happened a few times, recently (usually when I am traveling). Lowering the bar, perhaps, to gain market? Or is it just me?

End of days coffee

MUG: Styrofoam cup. As styrofoam cups go, this one is very attractive, and I did appreciate the sanitized wrapper.

COFFEE: Mello-Cup blend from Farmer Brothers. Suitable for pouring on cockroaches, I suppose.

NOTES: This is the coffee that was supplied with the coffee maker in the Tulsa Days Inn motel I stayed at last weekend. I brought my own coffee, but made this as a demonstration. The little packet is designed to make 4 cups (I used it to make two cups, which was still too weak). I compared it to the four cups worth of coffee I brought from home, and mine had a 4:1 volume ratio over the motel coffee. Cockroaches beware!

Mugga Java

MUG: Well, cup, actually. It's a Japanese decorative porcelain cup. Nice touch, good lip, comfortable handle. The decoration includes gold glazing, and the artwork is from a 18th Century celestial illustration (sun, moon, stars, comets, planets).

COFFEE: Mocha Java beans from Allegro Coffees. Ground this morning as lightening flashed across the sky. Mocha Java used to be my preferred coffee blend thirty-five years ago. In formulating my own private blend with Coffee Company, I finally settled on estate grown Colombian Supremo as my daily grind preference. Sometimes less (fuss) is more (satisfaction).

NOTE: Bought this because we were out of beans, we were at Whole Foods, and I didn't like the look of their Colombian. It's OK, if a little more acidic than I like. I noted that both Mocha (Yemen) and Java (Indonesia) were in the news this week. Yemen because of terrorist activity, Java because of volcanic. Colombia, on the other hand, was peaceful.