Cafe A La Pedestrian

We are coffee drinkers. We are motivated from our large cozy bed by the prospect of the warm wakening brew. We have a programmable coffee pot that will wake you with the fresh aroma of coffee. That is if you remembered to load it up and set it the night before... O.k. so that doesn't happen all that often, but it is a nice thought. For years we ordered Gevalia coffee. I was traveling with my job at the time and saw ads for it in every hotel and airport. They gave us a free coffee pot and a couple of mugs for trying it out. They mail your selections a few times a year. It was a bit pricey but the coffee was pretty good. Nice and mellow. Christmas time in New England means coffee deals at Dunkin Donuts though. DD is not a big thing out west. I don't think I know of one in Colorado. Winchells was the donut spot there, but most of those were nasty. Dunkins is a New England mainstay. You can't drive more than two blocks without passing one. Each morning they have a line of cars out in to the road. Their donuts are good, but it is their coffee that corners the market. Back to X-mas. They offer their coffee at buy one get one free. This is like getting four pounds of coffee for the price of one pound of Gevalia. I stocked up last year. I stored them in their vacuum bags in the freezer. I had also bought a few from a local coffee shop in Amherst over the summer. Just to break the routine. It lasted until this week. Now faced with running out of coffee I felt cornered. I didn't want to pay full price at Dunkins as Christmas is not that far away. I was driving the opposite way of the coffee shop and I didn't want to start with Gevalia again, because let's face it those mail order people are tough to shake. So I bought (gasp)grocery store coffee for the first time in years. It was fresh ground by me, but lord knows how old those beans are. I hope it isn't terrible... Crossing my fingers- we'll find out tomorrow!