Coffee is a very personal subject. The opinions on how to drink it are many and they are strong like last night’s coffee at Waffle House. I may be about to start a debate that cannot be won, but, in my opinion, there is only one way to drink coffee. Hot and black.

I realize that there are many of you sane and otherwise normal human beings who happen to require the commonly held practice of messing up coffee with concoctions and condiments typically reserved for cakes, milkshakes, and spiced pies. You are my friends, but I do not share your taste for coffee.

But let’s just agree that the day must begin with coffee.

In general, the perfect cup of coffee is whatever is in the first cup of the day. It can be a fancy latte if that’s what you prefer. It can be poured by a waitress at the local café. It can be hotel coffee in one of those little pots designed for elves. The main thing to acknowledge is that the first sip sends micro-neurological signals to your brain which make complete and coherent sentences possible before 7am.

The number one rule. Don’t ever make a life-changing decision before you’ve had your first cup of coffee. Entire careers, marriages, and baseball seasons have been compromised by hasty, pre-coffee conversations.

For the longest time I have made my coffee at home in the morning. Over the last 45 years I have slugged into the kitchen and reached blindly for the silent coffee pot holding the last cold remains of yesterday’s coffee. With eyes half-closed I pour the black dregs down the drain, refill a new filter, pour in the water, flip the switch, and stand there leaning on the counter, pleading with the pot to hurry up.

This is a painful way to begin the day. Waiting for coffee to make is like waiting on a vine to make a tomato. The more you think about it the longer it takes. Personally, I choose to just walk away from the pot. I can’t stand the torture. Salava glands over-salivate. I’m pressing my eyeballs into my skull with my hands, rubbing my eyes in hopes that my brain will clear up without coffee.

But it doesn’t happen.

My close friend Marion says to me, “Why don’t you use the timer?”

She is an early riser, and she will text me things like, “Is your coffee ready?”

Okay. I know my Mr. Coffee has some extra buttons on it. I know there’s a clock. I know you’re supposed to be able to set a timer, but it all seems so confusing to me.

“No. I don’t know how to set the timer.”

I’ve looked at my coffee appliance and I can’t seem to figure out the trick. Of course, the manual is long gone. But the idea of waking up to the aroma of coffee and not having to wait on coffee wins the war.

I have recently conquered the coffee pot timer and it’s like having a whole new reason to get up in the morning. I walk into the dark kitchen and that little green light greets me with, “Your coffee is ready sir.” For forty years I could’ve been doing this. I even use the “bold” setting now, which I never knew existed.

I have been reborn.

Unless, of course, I forget to set up the pot the night before. I’m not yet a hundred percent engaged in this new trend but I’m getting better at it.

I’m not sure how coffee came to be such an essential part of life. It’s like we don’t know how to function without it. We buy T-shirts about drinking coffee. We buy more coffee mugs than any one human requires. When we travel, we stop for coffee. Sometimes, coffee is the only breakfast we have. We get up in the morning and the first thing on our mind after the little trip to the bathroom is coffee.

Marion is traveling this week on a tour bus with a group from her church. They are living out of a hotel in Cincinnati, Ohio touring museums by day and hanging out at the local Mexican restaurant in the evenings. Nothing says Woo-Hoo like a bunch of rowdy seniors!

She texted me at 6:30 the other morning. “I need coffee.”

Now, you and I all know that every hotel in America has a coffee pot in the room. And if not, there’s a little lady down in the kitchenette next to the lobby making coffee by 6am.

“Don’t you have a coffee pot in your room?”

“Yes, but the coffee is awful. I can’t drink it.”

Personally, I have a high tolerance for bad coffee. I’ll drink anything that looks like coffee. I had coffee in a truck stop outside Effingham, Illinois one time that was about as high octane as it gets. Even the waitress said I would be drinking at the potential risk of violent gastrointestinal consequences.

So, I felt compassion for the situation in Cincinnati.

“Did you try the coffee in the room?”

“Yes. Absolutely awful. Like burned motor oil.”

“You gotta have coffee.”

“I know. Cracker Barrel opens at 7:00”

It turns out that the only thing wrong with the coffee in the room is that it’s a “bold” coffee blend and there’s not enough cream and sugar available to make it palatable enough to suit her taste buds.

My compassion turned to taunting.

“Oh, I see. The issue is not really with the coffee but with the inadequate condiments necessary to make sissy coffee.”

Not my finest moment with words. I may have been a little judgmental.

“Funny man,” she said.

The next picture that came was of a coffee mug surrounded by empty sugar packs and a stack of violated creamer cups. She was not going to be denied her style of coffee.

My folks, bless their hearts, both drank instant Sanka coffee. Gag me! If you’ve never tasted instant Sanka, just take a cup of hot water and put some dried dirt off the barn floor in it. The experience will be similar.

I was 26 and working in a greenhouse in Cartersville, Georgia in the wintertime when out of desperation for something warm I finally poured my first cup of real coffee. Admittedly, the taste had to grow on me, but that first styrofoam cup bonded me for life to the magic elixir.

If I had to rate my coffee experiences, I’d put hospital vending machine coffee at the bottom. If you need to prep for a colonoscopy, drink the coffee at the convenience store. It’s cheaper than the magnesium citrate the doc gives you. One cup and you’ll be squeaky clean.

At the top of my list is camp coffee. The wood fire and smoke. The cool air. The clink of the aluminum pot when poured. Both hands cupped around the enamel cup. The mist rising over the mountains. That, to me, is coffee perfection.

To all my coffee friends. May your beans be flawless. May your condiments be plentiful.

I’ll be drinking mine straight up black.