I'm proud to drink Church Basement Coffee

Though I'm not a Lutheran , I am marrying one and I have spent my share of time in the church basement. My favorite is the coffee, so thin you could see right through it if you drank out of a clear mug. Sure, it's caffeine concentration is weakened by the 2:1 (water:grounds) recipe, but how would you sit through church breakfast with five cups of coffee at full strength? I would be wound tighter than a twine string on a wet hay bale.

I have to admit I have taken my love of Church Basement Coffee around the world and back. In France, the only thing you could get me to order with coffee in it was a cafe au lait or an espresso chocolate dessert. Tiny demitasse cups full of steamy tar were politely decline. "Non, merci." Back in the states, working at my summer internship, I secretly make Church Basement Coffee from the office pot. It comes out thick, smoldering and smelling vaguely of sausage (why is that?). I pour half a cup in my mug, add half a cup of hot water and one-quarter cup of cold. Wait 10 minutes, and it's perfect.

I've tried to love regular coffee, but I can't. In college, I would order it from O'Connell's and sniff its seductive scent from my shiny green travel mug. At the end of the paper I was writing, I would still have half a cup left, now chilled and filmed over with what looked like an oil slick. I struggled through my late writing shifts with black tea and copious amounts of water.

Post-college, I've settled into my Church Basement Coffee drinker heritage, and I find I'm proud. Religion has done some terrible things, but in the basement of a quiet town church, women have quietly knit the threads of community over many pots of coffee.