Since I got M the coffee machine for his birthday, I have been turning to the dark side. I am actually a tea person. But I’ve begun using coffee for medicinal purposes…and also because I like using the machine. I like trying to make better and better coffee with it, tweaking my different approaches. I am embroiled in my own coffee challenge…

When I first decided that the coffee machine would feature in M’s three-pronged-present attack, I began researching on coffeesnobs.com.au. Their motto is Our name says it all. They’re not kidding. It took me a little while, but I finally got it. They are REAL coffee snobs, and that’s cool. But I just felt bad about what I was going to end up buying, due to normal financial constraints.

Over at coffeesnobs, you NEVER buy pre-ground coffee at a supermarket. You NEVER buy pre-ground coffee. Ever. Because three minutes after you grind it? It’s STALE. Apparently. And you don’t buy a crapola Breville number, you hold out and save your pennies, dammit, until you can afford something decent. Which will set you back at least a grand or so. And if this is patently impossible? Stick to your stovetop espresso or plunger…and spend $300 on a decent grinder instead.

I could have become demoralised, but then reality gave me a kick. Anything was going to be better than the plunger M had been dependent on since his stovetop espresso thingy had died. And thus, I got him the Breville Cafe Roma. Yeah. That’s right. You got a problem with that? I thought not. We’re liking it. But we liked it more when Mgs gifted us some coffee that took M’s supermarket pre-ground Vittorio out the back and flogged it dead. It was NICE. And I prefer TEA!

Since then we have gone back to the Vittorio, which I drink less of, because I don’t like it that much. My latest coffee drinking method of choice is warmed 1.5cm of cream in the bottom of a cup, with the coffee on top. Is good. I told my friends this, the ones who don’t call potatoes ‘potatoes’ (they call them ‘carbs’) and they visibly staggered. Like it was a bad thing. I think not.

But. The other day we ran out of coffee. I was at the supermarket, desperate to break away from Vittoria. It has recently been Fair Trade Fortnight, and I thought that if I was going to horrify the coffee snobs by buying supermarket coffee, I should, at least, buy ethically. I am not saying I made the wrong decision… My integrity is intact. The coffee, however, is revolting. I want to persevere, but can anyone out there recommend a decent Fair Trade coffee? One with a little bit of a KICK? That tastes like coffee, and not coffee flavoured cardboard? Hello?

Oh. And I almost forgot to mention, because I keep meaning to do a baby-music roundup review, but The Coffee Song from Ralph Covert has been doing the rounds at our place over the past month or two… Come on…everybody…
D-A-D-D-Y needs C-O-F-F-E-E…I want a latte, a cappuccino…and tonight…I think I’ll have a little vino…