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Recollections of My First Cup of Freshly-Ground Coffee

I still remember it well! It was the summer of 1961, and I was in Yosemite Valley visiting a friend, Phil, who was hanging out for a couple of months pursuing his newly found interest in rock-climbing. When Phil took an interest in something, he always jumped into it with both feet, and this was no exception. A gifted storyteller, his re-counting of the rock-climbing adventures of the likes of Royal Robbins and similarly-renowned climbers—all people he idolized at the time—held my rapt attention and gave occasion for my imagination to soar.

We had gone to one of the valley’s few eating establishments—I can’t recall which—that morning for a cup of coffee. We were sitting on the outside patio, the rays of the morning sun filtering down softly through the trees, the fresh smell of conifer branches in the air and the sound of mountain jays squawking high above us. Even though I grew up not far from the Valley, back then I had only been there a few times, so everything about the place had the feeling of newness and excitement about it.

Our waitress brought us two coffees in fancy-looking cups resting atop matching saucers. The pungent smell of freshly-ground coffee beans rose up lazily from the dark brew as if it was from some exotic far-away land. My only prior experiences with coffee-drinking at that point in my life had been drinking the “cowboy” coffee my father used to brew every morning in his antiquated coffee pot, into which he would dutifully add pre-ground canned Folgers coffee to the water awaiting inside, boiling the mixture until it was done to his liking. My parents also had a coffee percolator, but its use was reserved for special occasions such as family gatherings on holidays. Neither of these methods delivered results anywhere near approaching those residing in the cup that now sat enticingly before me, beckoning me to delve deeper into its rich and exotic depths.

That first sip was absolute perfection!

It is said of junkies that they always try to re-capture that overpowering feeling they experienced the first time they used; I now understood the meaning of their statement; the allure of that first cup of fresh-ground brew was so strong, the taste so compellingly wonderful that, ever since the first taste,  I’ve wanted, searched and longed over the years for that experience to repeat itself with each succeeding cup.

However, perfection being, by definition, already something as faultless as it can possibly be, this pursuit, being doomed from the beginning, is a fool’s errand at best. That first cup must always remain the pinnacle of perfection, the highest of the heights attainable by us mere mortals, consigned as we are to our limited existences within the endless cycle of dissolution and renewal.

We should all be happy, I suppose, with our small miracles, grateful for the opportunity to have had them and content in the knowledge that our existence on this plane affords us such opportunities at all.

Tim Konrad