Combat Coffee

What is it about people and coffee these days? Why do they have to add so much crap and why is it so hard to get good, simple cup of hot, black coffee? Did you know that one chain of national coffee shops has 874 way to make coffee? Who needs that? Just cowboy up and havacuppajoe.

Good coffee is pretty important thing when you’re in the field. A hot cup of joe on a cold night can make or break a shift. It helps you stay awake and warms yours bones. The caffeine in coffee is one of the few natural stimulants you can take without long term harm and you can manage the dose simply by how much you drink. But why is it so hard to get a hot cup of coffee in the field?

The Army has three grades of coffee – diesel fuel, battery acid and used crankcase oil. The grade depends on the skill of the coffee maker and how long the coffee has been sitting in the urn. The office swill some people call paint thinner pales in comparison.

Chow hall coffee in marmite cans – yech! I know the mess sergeants and cooks try hard and I thanked them every time the delivered hot chow in the field but coffee in marmite cans is one of nature’s horrors, like spiders in your face at night and the Santa Ana Range. Chow hall coffee only stays hot for so long in a marmite or a thermos.

Freeze dried coffee in MRE’s – OK if you’re jonesing for some caffeine and you need to taste something besides dirt in your mouth. It’s not really coffee; its brown speed.

I have seen some real disasters in coffee. Two of the best were and aluminum spoon left in a steel urn, turning it into a very weak battery and causing the coffee to become a chemistry experiment; and some moron who didn’t remove the old grounds when making a new pot of coffee. He just added new grounds to the one already in the basket. No one was constipated…

So, there are generally two opportunities to make coffee in the field, at a TOC or tactically. You can make things easier for everyone if you can make a good pot of coffee. Making coffee for the staff can really make things go better for everyone. I owe this one to a US Navy Chief Petty Officer who gave me a lesson on how to make decent coffee at field station in Germany in the 1980′s. It helped that she was a redhead, but that’s another story. The lesson helped me many times through the years. And if you think this is trivial, be on watch at 0400 when the Corps Commander walks is for an impromptu intel update.

One thing most people do is they ruin a coffee pot by cleaning the coffee pot with hot soap and water. The soap penetrates the steel and you never get it out, forever leaching the taste of soap into the coffee pot. The proper method is to fill the pot with white vinegar and run it through a cycle and the flush with clean water for two or three more cycles. A word of caution – this smells horrible. I mean really bad. Grown men cry at the stench and dogs run away. So do it outside unless you need to clear your office.

Once the coffee pot is cleaned out, fill it with clean, cold water. You’ll just have to deal with tap water unless you have a water filter to remove the chlorine taste. Crumble a thin layer of washed, dried egg shells in the basket. The calcium absorbs much of the bitterness. The coffee grounds: freshly ground if you can, as listed in the instructions -generally one scoop for two cups. If you are working a bleeding midnight shift, just pack the basket to the brim. Finally: just a pinch of salt; not too much. If you can taste the salt, add less next time. The salt enhances the flavor of the coffee and if it’s really hot, gives
you some electrolytes.

In the field, it can be more of a challenge. You need to plan ahead for this. An old-fashioned percolator and a stove are needed, and another pot for boiling water. You might want to consider a multi fuel stove so you can burn alcohol, which burns with no visible flame. Some people drink tea, but a hot cup of water with sugar goes a long way to warming someone up when it’s cold. If you don’t have a percolator or pot, a canteen cup will do for cowboy coffee. Just boil the water with the coffee until it smells right then throw a shot of cold water into the coffee to settle the grounds. Enamel coffee cups for everyone on the team and a couple of spares because a hot cuppa joe for a visitor leaves a good impression and lends an air of civility to an otherwise harsh environment.

A large thermos helps keep the coffee warm so you don’t have to use the stove all the time. This should go in your strike box or golden Connex. Conjuring up hot coffee in the field can really help your troops and gives them a big morale boost. As for me, I think that if you've found a good sort of coffee (if it taste good for you), no matter what you're choosing: the coolest looking house near the river, or the best gun safe under $1000 - buy it with reserve and keep it in your house or safe to always have an opportunity to drink a cup of your favourite coffee.