Today is November 14th, the Monday after Veterans Day 2022. Want to take this time to thank all those businesses that offered specials to Veterans on the Eleventh of November. Particularly those that provided a free caffee. Got a free donut from Dunkin Donuts while picking up my first cup of coffee for the morning. Also took advantage of a free meal from Smokey Bones in Colonie. Got a “pulled sami and French fries. Of course had a cup of coffee with it.

Its November 4th and its a beautiful day. First cup of coffee today was at the Gateway Diner in Albany. Drank it while reading the New York Post. It was a Mike Vaccaro piece on the Kyrie Irving mess. That’s been the big story in the NBA over the last few days. Now he’s suspended. It might be the best thing for him. He might wake up. Mike was critical of NBA Commissioner Adam Silver for taking too long to act. AGEED!

Got my first cup of coffee on the second at the Daily Grind on Lark Street In Albany N Y. Good Coffee. Good shop.

Here it is October 31,2022. My Bills won last night taking down Green Bay. That was a treat, albeit an early one. And Halloween was a beautiful day. And started the day with a delicious cup of coffee from Sham’s in Albany.

On the morning of the 22nd of October went and picked up groceries. After beer purchase at Sham’s went home. But alas! Before reaching the door, discovered that the coffee cup was left at home. What happened after that? Went home, got the cup and returned to Sham’s and purchased a cup of coffee. Such is my LOVE of it.

Within the NCA-National Coffee Association website, the question was posed, what is coffee? Underneath it went “everyone recognizes a roasted coffee bean but you might not recognize an actual coffee plant.” This blogger doesn’t. NCA continued., “coffee trees are pruned short to conserve their energy and aid in harvesting but can grow to more than 30 feet(9 meters) high. Each tree is covered with green, waxy leaves growing opposite each other in pairs. Coffee cherries grow along the branches. Because it grows in a continuous cycle its not unusual to see flowers, green fruit and ripe fruit simultaneously on a single tree.” Following that it was written “it takes nearly a year for a cherry to mature after first flowering and about 5 years of growth to reach full fruit production” Rome wasn’t built in a day. Neither is a coffee bean. Learned that it takes a while.

Its Monday the17th of October. This morning started another work week. As it was morning, saw a number of people at the job with coffee cups. Contents were coffee or tea. Would venture to say it was mostly coffee in those cups. At my section’s daily morning meeting there were five coffee cups on various tables. Add mine and you had six. Coffee cups are a common sight at my workplace in the morning. But today this feature of my place of employment made me wonder what the first coffee cups were like. So clicked on to our friends at Google and looked it up. Typed in “first coffee cups” and got the entry “the first coffee mugs were used during the Neolithic period(3900BC-1700BC). These cups were crafted from wood or animal skulls and were used for water, spirits, mead and wine.” Then looked at the question “who made the first coffee mug”, the answer was rounded out with “eventually bone and wood gave way to pottery and handles came about.” Is it safe to say cavemen and women were drinking from the first coffee cups? But the only thing was, it appears they missed the coffee by some centuries.

We go back to the NCA-National Coffee Association website. It was written that “by the mid 17th Century, there were over 300 coffee house in London, many of which attracted like-minded patrons, including merchants, shippers, brokers and artists…Many businesses grew out of these specialized coffee houses. Lloyd’s of London, for example, came into existence at the Edward Lloyd’s Coffee House.” Now we skip over to Lloyd’s of London website where it was said under the heading of “Our Past” that “from its beginning in a coffee house in 1688, Lloyd’s has been a pioneer in insurance and has grown over 330 years to become the world’s leading market for specialist insurance” So Lloyd’s of London was started over and/or around coffee. A Tally Ho and back to the NCA website we go. A bit after that it was written ” in the mid-1600s, coffee was brought to New Amsterdam, later called New York by the British.” Coffee came to America. “NEW YORK, NEW YORK”.

Writing this with a touch of sadness as we note the passing away of the great actress Angela Lansbury. Leaving us at age 96 she seemed to have lived a long ,productive and full life as she worked in TV, movies and on stage for most of eight decades. But her passing away made me think of my late Grandmother. Was once part of an organization that required me to be in the New York Metropolitan Area one weekend a month. Well many times before heading back up North, would drop by her home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan to pay her a visit. Usually this happened on Sunday. At the time of its airing she would have her television set tuned into “Murder She Wrote”. It seemed to me she never missed a show. She loved that show. Would sit and watch it with her. Could tell it was a good show although my days of watching non Alfred Hitchcock mysteries was over at that point. During remembrances of Angela found out the show ran for twelve years. Now that’s standing the test of time. Would see Angela in old black and white movies from time to time, most notably “The Manchuria Candidate”. But during “Good Morning America’s’ remembrance of her, saw where she did a voice of a character in the classic “Beauty And The Beast”. A clip was shown of her voice being applied to an animated coffee cup chasing another character around. Of course its more than likely people who might be reading this in the United Kingdom, where Angela was born, would call it a teapot. But this blog emanates from here in the States and in this corner it looks like a coffee pot. Whatever the case a salute and celebration for the Life of the Great Angela Lansbury.

The above is a variation of Old Blue Eyes’, Frank Sinatra’s, lead off of his 1980 classic “New York New York”. But now we hop into the time machine and back it up three centuries. We’ll let the NCA-National Coffee Association-website take it from there. “European travelers to the Near East brought back stories of an unusually dark black beverage. By the 17th Century, coffee had made its way to Europe and was becoming popular across the continent.” A paragraph later it was written that “coffee house were quickly becoming centers of social activity and communication in the major cities of England, Austria, France, Germany and Holland. In England ‘penny universities’ sprang up, so called because for the price of a penny one could purchase a cup of coffee and engage in stimulating conversation….Coffee began to replace the common breakfast beverages of the time, beer and wine.” What a way to swing into your day, with Lager and Vino. But coffee apparently moved in. It was big time. It was in Europa!