The Luxury of Coffee: A Daily Must-Have

I don’t know if it would be considered a luxury.

More like a necessity.

Coffee.

I don’t’ care if it’s from Starbucks.

I don’t care if it’s from Denny’s

I don’t care if I make it myself.

Coffee is about the only vice I have left.

Some of my fondest memories surround coffee.

Every morning, my wife and I get up. I make coffee for us and we sit and talk. That’s my favorite time of day.

I also remember coffee in the cow camps. Getting up early to herd the cows down to meet the trucks. The sun just barely up and frost across the meadows. I’d stand with a hot cup of coffee, steam rising from it. I’d load it up with sugar and canned milk.

Then there was the Army. I always appreciated a hot cup out in the field. And coffee became a moment of community. One of the things that used to happen when we deployed to the Gulf was something called “Stand to!” A little bit before sunrise, we’d filter out of our tents and get into our fighting positions. Attacks often times come at dawn, and if one came, we’d be ready.

But before this ritual occurred, we’d cluster around the stove in our tent. Part of that was to knock the chill out of our bones. But the rest was to make a cup of coffee and enjoy being with each other. There was a recipe for the coffee we made and here it is:

• One packet of hot chocolate
• One packet instant coffee.
• Dehydrated cream
• Sugar

Mix well and enjoy.

Then we’d take the coffee with us into the foxholes.

And during the ground war or moving, coffee was still vital. Courtesy of Sgt. Greg Bradley we had a small gas-powered heater that could warm up water or a coffee pot. That made Greg a very popular person.

Coffee has been a tradition in the military probably since before the Civil War.

In letters and diaries from that period, the word “coffee” is often times used more than any other word. Union soldiers were given 36 pounds of coffee a year as their ration. By the reverse, the average soldier of the Confederacy had little or no coffee. When there was no fighting going on, there were numerous instances of soldiers from both sides meeting to trade.

A common trade was coffee for tobacco, something the Confederacy had plenty of.

Coffee was so important, one soldier writing home lamented that they were low on supplies. But what was spelled out was the lack of coffee. His comment was “How can you soldier without coffee?”

I’m thankful we never had to ask that question.

All that to say I could do without a lot of so called luxury items.

But coffee?

Never!

Picture Copyright Richard L. Muniz

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