Procaffeination

(transcript- these audio vignettes were aired on News Radio KOTA in Rapid City South Dakota)

Procaffeination – a noun: the tendency to not start anything until you’ve had a cup of coffee.

Hi, I’m Michael the Aussie coffee guy from Essence of Coffee, and I’m a procaffeination guy. It’s nice at the end of the day to sit, sip a glass of wine and reminisce on the achievements of the day, but pleasant reminiscence requires positive outcomes from successful productivity.

So, before you get started get coffee.

For many years I was a self-funded missionary. What that means is I would work and save so that I could travel to places like East Africa or the Philippines etc. I traveled in and out of Tanzania and Kenya for over 10 years, visiting remote villages and setting up feeding programs for orphans and widows, help get houses built,d and even built a church and a school.

One of my functions was to go to remote areas and bring pastors and community leaders together and have seminars on leadership and community service. There were no hotels and no McDonalds out there. We would purchase a few goats and a bunch of vegetables and have them prepared for our meals which were shared with the locals.

What does this have to do with procaffeination? Well, one luxury I held onto on all of my safaris whether, to the Philippines, Malaysia or Tanzania was coffee. Wherever I went I took my own roasted beans with me and a French press. All I needed was some hot water and my day was good to go. Anything could be achieved once I had my morning coffee.

One such journey took us to a remote area of Singida in Tanzania. The journey from Arusha was 250 miles and it took over 14 hours to get there in our Land Cruiser. It was a treacherous harrowing journey. By the end of our time in Singida, my coffee supply had been severely depleted –I hadn’t budgeted my coffee to include the many locals wanting to try the mzungu’s coffee. So I squirreled away enough to make one more French Press before we headed off on our 14-hour trek back to Arusha.

A group of local women were preparing breakfast over an open fire. I ground the last of my beans and asked a companion to get hot water put in. He gave it to one of the women who seeing the coffee grounds, assumed they were leftovers and lovingly washed out my French press before putting hot water into it. Let me just say the ensuing 14-hour journey was not my most pleasant trip.

This story has no real point or moral except that if you’re heading out on a 14-hour safari over some rough and inhospitable terrain or having to drive a busload of kids on a school excursion, starting your day with coffee is going to make it a whole lot more enjoyable than not.

Although David Lynch said even a bad cup of coffee is better than no coffee at all, the truth is there is no need to suffer with no coffee or bad coffee. When I travel, I take a bag of Genesis, an AeroPress or a clever coffee dripper, and a hand grinder. All I need is to find a bottle of water and a means to heat it, the rest is in my travel bag.

To quote myself: “Life is too short to drink bad coffee.” At Essence we have some of the best equipment with which to make your morning coffee. Remember – procaffeination – the tendency to not start anything until you’ve had a cup of coffee. Especially Mondays.

Enjoy your coffee and enjoy your day.