My search for coffee these past few days has been a rough one. Port City, of course, is closed, and the Caribou Coffee that I thought was on Holcomb Bridge apparently is also close. Coffee isn’t terribly hard to find—every gas station, fast food restaurant and Brazilian deli between me and the office serves coffee—but there’s something about the coffee shop environment that makes it special, that evokes visions of Juan Valdez watching the sun rise over green, misty mountains.
Day one, after a failed search for Caribou, ended at Racetrack. They, like other gas stations have of late, offer multiple coffee choices, though, unlike BP’s futile attempt to seem classy, all the countries listed on the coffee names are Columbia, and the choices are light or dark roasts. I went with the lighter roast, and it was fairly unexciting. Tuesday found me at Chick-fil-a. I’m not sure if it was just my imagination, but I could have sworn there was just a hint of chicken taste in it. It sure was cheap, too. $.95 for what cost $1.87 at Port City. Chick-fil-a also brought me a step closer to my goal, since it gave me warm fuzzy feeling from the curious regionalism that I’ve adopted through supporting a southern company (not to be confused with The Southern Company). On Wednesday, however, I think I’ve found my new morning haunt. I had forgotten that there is a close cousin of the coffee shop, perhaps even superior to the coffee shop in their tasks of delivering tasty coffee and friendliness, and there is a particular choice on my way to work that satisfies both my needs for a variety of brews and a heart below the Mason-Dixon.
I’m going with Krispy Kreme.