Another Important Matter Concerning the Existence of Humanity- Coffee

My third ship was an oiler. Not long after checking aboard I asked the CMC if the oil slick on my coffee had been happening for very long. He had been aboard for nine years and knew everything. He was an old bosun’s mate who wore a combo cover instead of a ball cap and it was always canted to starboard. He had hands like grizzly paws, leathery skin, and a face like a catcher’s mitt. About the coffee he said, "Doc, when you spend as much time on tankers (sic) as I have, you'll not only expect it but learn to love it. Plus, it's good for my skin." He turned and walked away leaving me shaking my head.

Mess decks coffee on my previous ships occasionally had various tastes, smells, and appearances but this coffee had an actual oil slick. I was later treated with an oily shower complete with a petroleum odor. I had no preventive medicine technician (8432) onboard like the AOEs had so I was the preventive medicine guy. After some digging around I was told by the water king, the BTCS, and again the master chief that life on an oiler included oily water, and, DFM was leaching into a water tank that we don't like to use but sometimes have to. It's OK they said. INSERV and COMLOGRU 2 know all about it so just relax and enjoy the ride. So I did. Relaxed and enjoyed my time aboard the Navy's First and Finest Fast Attack Oiler, the USS Savannah AOR-4.
You must teach creative writing!
 
I think I remember the guy .... BMC on my first Midshipman cruise. I am still impressed by his ability to take a drag on his cigarette, take a hit of coffee, then exhale the smoke. He was certainly an old school CPO , as salty as they come !
You nailed him. He was a smoker for sure and drank coffee until late at night. Of course on an oiler, late at night is relative. He didn't have an UNREP station of but would jump in and work as hard as the young guys. He hardly ever raised his voice except one night we were refueling the America in the North Atlantic, he got so mad he took the sound powered phones and screamed obscenities at whoever was on the other end on the carrier. It was a wild night.
 
I chose to trust your opinion, and bought a Toddy system. I haven't used it yet, but I really do love the bottled cold brew stuff (which I warm up in the microwave). If this thing makes it like that at home, I may never use the auto-drip maker again.

If readers haven't tried cold-brew coffee, I personally think that STOK® will make believers out of you:
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It makes for a wonderfully smooth and decidedly not-bitter, cup of coffee.

It's kinda "spendy" though. I think a bottle as pictured runs about 5 bucks.
A few things, so you do not curse me out when you first use it...

The 'recipe' is a suggestion. You do not not have to be precise with the water. I use about 8 cups for a 12 oz bag. Just try to be somewhat consistent so you have the same concentration each time.

Put in half the water, pour in the coffee, and then slowly pour in the other half of the water. Then don't touch a thing. Let it sit for awhile (I wait about 30 mins). Then stir. Waiting gives the grounds a chance to saturate. If you stir right away, you'll just have dry floating coffee on top and you'll stirring for an eternity.

The filter can be used many times. I put it right in the dishwasher. I've used the same filter for a year.
 
I bought extra filter disks (which go in the bottom recess of the white plastic coffee/water resevoir) , but I thought that I would try the filter bags as well, so I picked up a dozen of those. Maybe that's overkill, but what the heck.
 
Back on the boats (Submarines) when we were on watch we usually were not permitted to leave our Watch Station for a Coffee Run to the Crew's Mess coffee pot. So we'd get the messenger to "make a Coffee run" for a bunch of us. Virtually all of us would ask for a "Black and Bitter."

The occasional clown would ask for Coffee, with milk and sugar, or similar. We'd all laugh at the guy, and if the messenger was at all senior, he'd simply get the clown what all of us real submariners drank.
 
I'm glad to hear that the tradition (making fun of clowns who put stuff in their coffee) lives on.

If ever asked if you want anything in your coffee, the proper answer should always be "coffee".
 
If ever asked if you want anything in your coffee, the proper answer should always be "coffee".
Or, "black and bitter." Navy issue brand, dregs from pot best.

Don't even get me started on what to do when you've been drinking coffee for a six hour watch, timing it so that you could just make it until the end of the watch so you could use the head... only to find out your relief was late, having slept in or some such unpardonable sin. (I'm toldthe AD pilots in Vietnam Carrier Ops would comeback to the Carrier after 6-8 hours in the air, land on the carrier, open the cockpit canopy, and hand the fluid filled leather flight glove to the deck crew.)
 
I carried a glass Gatorade bottle, wrapped in 100MPH tape (to keep it from breaking) in the cockpit, for this very reason.
TMI?
 
I just thought of another contribution I could make, given I’m a non-coffee drinker.

Are 5lb cans of Navy coffee still in regular use as comshaw currency? I first learned this underground rate of exchange when my chiefs taught me to trade favors for coffee at my first duty station at Rota Port Services. Want to keep the paint float an extra day, last minute request? X cans of coffee.
 
Coffee didn't win the war for the North, but it sure helped.


These days, soldiers in the field don't have the luxury of whole coffee beans, grinders and muckets. As my son noted, they make do with combat espresso - you tear open the packets of instant coffee, sugar and powdered non-dairy creamer in your MRE, pour them down your gullet. then wash it down with water.
 
Are 5lb cans of Navy coffee still in regular use as comshaw currency? I first learned this underground rate of exchange when my chiefs taught me to trade favors for coffee at my first duty station at Rota Port Services.

Exactly! When I was in the Shipyards, Electric Boat (EB) Division in Groton, CT, building Nuclear Submarines, I could have purchased a whole extra Submarine for the Navy for Four 20 lb tins of Coffee and two Foul Weather Jackets. Had I thrown in a couple pair of Aviator Sunglasses, I could have had them delivered with torpedos loaded.

True story, I still have a CO2 Fire Extinguisher I got from the EB fire department in exchange for some junk they wanted.

Don't even get me going on Fire Departements in Naval Shipyards years later. lol
 
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Hot and black. Mid (plebe) life is just a tiny bit easier when you don't have to worry about washing your mug. Every once in a while I'll splurge and get a large caramel ice coffee, half ice, half sugar, half cream from Dunkin. But that probably counts as a dessert.

Drinking King Hall coffee black builds character... soft lands or something like that

Editing to add: I won't drink coffee at night. I'm a stickler for good green tea
 
Attention @brewmeist !
I made cold brew in the Toddy Cold Brew System this week.

WOW.

3 parts boiling water, 1 part cold brew concentrate. Absolutely wonderful. They say it's good in the fridge for 3 weeks.
 
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