Adding sugar to coffee is believed to have started in 1715, in the court of King Louis XIV, the French monarch.

My first coffee experience was drinking Folgers with a generous scoop of sugar, out of my dad’s thermos while duck hunting on a cold winters morning in Oregon. I remember it tasting horrible but it warmed my tummy, I also remember at about the same time going fishing with dad and dropping and breaking the thermos before he had his first cup of the day, boy was he crabby that day.

In college in the mid 70’s we had plenty of high octane dorm coffee which was mainly Tasters Choice Crystals. We’d add a couple extra spoonfuls for effect to get through the long evenings of reading, studying, and playing.

One guy I knew would dip a spoonful directly in his mouth and head for the water fountain to hydrate the dusty mess. We’d supplement that with the $1.99 complete breakfasts at the Mill Race Café across the street from the University of Oregon, which included their bottomless cup of Joe.

The second year of school a friend of mine brought back some coffee he had bought at a small neighborhood roaster in Eugene Oregon, called Allann Brothers Coffee (now a huge multi-store company). The friend had this brewer contraption that looked more like a science experiment than mom’s West Bend percolator. He said proudly, “this is my new Chemex coffee brewer” and proceeded to place a filter of the freshly ground, freshly roasted Kenyan coffee into the hourglass shaped brewer, and then when it had finished brewing, I tasted it and never went back to canned or instant coffee again. After 30 years Kenyan is still one of my favorite coffees.

Learn more at our website, WRCoffee.com.

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