Coffee

I love coffee. Love the smell of it, love the taste of it, love savoring it. I can make a cup of coffee last a coupla hours. When I order coffee to go, I love carrying it around with me, comforting like a warm hug.

Lattes are for me. Skim milk, little foam. In my frivolous youth, I was a vanilla latte drinker. So you can see, that is still pretty stable. No gingerbread flavoring or caramel mocha choca chai double shot extra foam for me. When I grind my own coffee every night before bed (thank god for the Krup's timer pot!) I choose a straightforward coffee like Alterra's Voltaire's Passion or an Eight O'Clock Columbian. Nothing wrong with Steep and Brew or Victor Allen beans, either. A solid choice. And for a quickie ground coffee - nothing beats Chock Full O'Nuts.

But if I am going to go for the latte - I am not going to take just anything placed in front of me! I have a systematic route for what I am looking for.

If expense is no issue, I am going for Ancora. They create an arty, delicious latte. Michelangelo's, Fair Trade, Espresso, Starbucks follow suite. I generally choose Michelangelo's and Fair Trade while at work because I want to support local business and it is fair trade! Espresso makes a latte with little or no foam, which is the way I prefer it. I certainly enjoy Starbucks and do not really believe they are evil corporate America. Any business that offers part-time employees health insurance is fine with me. Take that Wal-Mart. But they are uniformly heavy on the foam (I thought maybe just on the square but this seems to be true at the top of State and at the University drive-thru - god bless them because I would drive half-way across town to use a drive-thru) and annoying on the non-fat milk front. We call it skim here in Wisconsin. Still, a delicious latte.