I usually hate snobs. There are snobs in nearly every area of the world and for everything anyone can be interested in. For example, there are snobs who will only watch HD TV no matter what. If their favorite television show of all time is on but it is not in HD they will watch insects having sex instead of their favorite show. There are people who are food snobs. If they were literally starving, to the point where you could count his ribs, they would not eat a hot dog or hamburger from a drive-thru. There are liquor snobs who insist there is actually a difference in taste between beers or who can really truly speak in those pretentious terms that people talk about wine.

Then there are those who are movie and television snobs. I have written about both of them before and they drive me crazy. I can put up with almost anything when it comes to a movie and I have this certificate that says I am some kind of expert in Film Theory and Criticism. I just got a bunch of DVDs of the old Japanese Godzilla movies and I am so excited I can’t wait to tear into them and then review the packaging and stuff for an online magazine.

Finally, there are the coffee snobs. I resisted being a coffee snob for a very long time. My friend Tim is the first person to get me to drink coffee. He was already well on his way to being a hopeless addict even then. We were both working at the greatest job that either of us have ever had since and that was working for our high school Registrar. It was a great after-school and summer job and we had fun working together. Coffee was always brewed in the office and one day Tim told me to try some. My dad had been a lifelong coffee drinker and I had tried sips of the stuff from him before and never liked it. For some reason, this morning, it was like tasting the nectar of the gods.

Before too long I was drinking coffee every morning. For years, however, the grounds dumped into a filter in a coffee pot, no matter the brand, and hot water filtered through it was fine. I have worked at radio stations where the coffee was almost alive in the pot that was rarely cleaned. I once worked in a music store where the ancient coffee pot in the back was often poured into one manager’s mug and it was a mug that had not been watched since the Ford administration.

I have also had coffee at coffee shops that supposedly specialized in the stuff. With me, for most of my life, it didn’t really matter. I always added so much cream or creamer and sugar that whatever subtle flavors might have been within the mug were completely lost on my taste buds. All of this changed when I suddenly became intolerant of lactose and couldn’t put tons of cream or milk in my coffee. Then it was discovered if I avoid wheat my stomach seems to work better and so I had to avoid most of those creamers. Then I realized I was having general trouble with my colon and adding caffeine was only making things worse. Yes, I gave up coffee and I quit cold turkey.

It was tough, I have to say. While I never got to the point, like my father did, where I wanted to drink about fifty cups of coffee a night I was drinking at least two cups every morning. Giving that up was an exercise in agony and I had to deal with a headache for two weeks straight. Eventually I got past it and was drinking things like juice to get some kind of boost. I had managed to quit for over two years before my friend from St. Louis tempted me to the breaking point.

Yes, I enjoy blaming others for my weaknesses. I have very little will power but I had managed to avoid the coffee temptation. Then I stayed a weekend at my friend’s house. His wife added to it by making some of the best bacon and eggs you will ever eat. She cooks the eggs in the bacon grease. Lord, it must be bad but it tastes so good. My friend likes to grins his own beans and then use hot water and a device known as a French Press to make his coffee. The meal was so good and the coffee smelled so good I asked for a cup. Then I had another. After that I was lost again.

For a while I was just buying the coffee from a Starbucks or Starbucks-related place. I added those damn flavor syrups for a while. However, because I have to avoid cream I have grown to appreciate the flavor of coffee black. I have actually started to develop some taste buds that can differentiate between the various beans and coffees.

I have now bought myself a French Press and a coffee grinder. The grinder is a hand-me-down, and it is a blade grinder and I am told this does not work the best with a press but it will have to do for now. I grind beans every morning that I bought from Starbucks. I add it into the French Press which is a glass and metal contraption that only the French could have invented. There is a cover made of metal attached to a kind of plunger things. I then heat up water in a tea pot but the key is to do it only until it starts to steam a bit. You don’t want to have it boiling or it can scorch the coffee. You then pour that into the coffee ground in the press and stir the mixture for a bit. You then let it sit there and steep for about four minutes. After that you slowly plunge that plunger which pushes the grounds to the bottom of the press and then you pour out the coffee. I tell ya, it is the best coffee you are likely to taste.

So, yes, I am becoming a snob. I worry about scorching my beans. I use something, on daily basis, with the word “French” in it. I use words like steep and stir coffee in my kitchen. I have become, in short, a coffee snob. I at least get to add some of my rice milk which I drink and that adds to the flavor.

I am still not as bad as my friend, Tim, however. He has taken it one step further and actually frightened both myself and my friend from St. Louis. Tim has a roaster. He gets the unroasted beans online or from specialty stores somewhere. He then is forced to roast his beans out on the screened-in porch he has because his wife doesn’t like the smell. I once saw him do it. He talks about the color of the beans the way some people talk about cars. He then grinds in the beans, in a burr grinder of course, and then brews them also using a French Press. I have repeatedly told him this is like a heroin addict who decides to grow his own poppies. He has gone beyond being a coffee snob. He is the uber-snob.

So, I have become a bit of a coffee snob. However, unlike many snobs, this does not mean I won’t drink a cup of swill that you might find in, say, a Jiffy-Lube. I am not the type who prefers to go without than deal with something sub-par. I am an immediate gratification type, really, who would just rather have a drink of coffee if I crave one. So, you see, I can still be grounded. Now, where’s my French Press?

Bryan W. Alaspa’s novel Dust is available in print and eBook format at his website www.bryanalaspa.com and www.amazon.com.