Sugar and Cream and Everything Smooth

One can argue that since colonial days, our coffee drinking habits became an icon for the "will" of the American people. After the tea was dumped in Boston Harbor, England banned commerce with Boston, but then other colonial cities responded in solidarity by holding their own tea destruction parties, eventually leading to the revolution. In order to not finance England's largest global corporation, the East India Company, American colonists sought after coffee from their pan-American brothers.

The American determination represented by coffee habits carried on into our wars agaist facism and totalitarianism. Such is seen in WW II era movies and books, where strong cups of percolated Joe were consumed to keep the body awake. Often the liquid was colorfully described to reflect its bitterness, and mud-like properties. But it matched those difficult and dark times like being on the bridge of a destroyer searching for subs. Sugar and cream was left for occasional Sunday tea parties.

But times do change and so did our coffee habits, and the ways we fought our wars, in particular Vietnam. First we got practical and we wanted it fast and easy. We rated diners on how fast they could get the brew in our mugs, and all the better if we did not have to ask for refills. We even attempted to trade in the percolator for instant coffee, and we started offering an option for toned down (or 'de-horned') versions of the bitter brew by extracting its caffeine. This period culminated with the broad acceptance of the automatic drip method giving the added convenience of disposable paper filters.

More recently we got romantic about who we are, and being tired of the still somewhat bitter drip, we sought fresh but ancient wisdom from our uncles in Europe who have gladly exported their culture in past centuries. From them, we learned and mass marketed with typical American zeal how to apply to our coffee what we once applied to ourselves when drinking it. We started dark roasting our coffee to strengthen it, and then we utilized steam pressure against a more finely grounded coffee. Resulting in our being able to now enjoy a richer and less bitter brew, and despite this taste improvement we found ourselves regularly adding more sugar and cream than ever before, and gasp, who knows what type of syrup.

As we continue to sugar and cream our way to an increasingly smoother coffee are we not out-doing even our uncles and brothers from the other lands? Have we grown so accustomed to convenience and quick gratifying pleasure that we may no longer be able to handle or suffer through the more bitter and murky thick times when they do come our way?

Or maybe other countries may tire of having the American will imposed upon them and will begin to start dumping American-branded coffees in their harbors. Or in ours.