While we typically devote Thirsty Thursday posts to a tasty adult beverage of one sort or another, consumed needless to say with the utmost care and decorum, now and again it’s fitting to pay homage to some other beverage that plays a critical role in the lives of those chasing fish with a fly rod.
Today we offer the humble road trip coffee.
While some among us think nothing of dropping five or six bucks on a double-(or triple)-shot, foam covered, over roasted, esoterically flavored espresso concoction, pulled by a bearded hipster (who despite his best attempt to impersonate a 95-lb. Paul Bunyan wouldn’t know which end of the ax to use to chop down a tree), some of us still reach for the simple brewed coffee selling for something close to a buck.
Now I don’t have the slightest idea if the stories describing the historical origins of coffee are true, though somehow the story of a working man, Kaldi the goatherd, discovering the magic bean and fathering the entire world coffee industry resonates deeply.
Years ago when making runs from SLC to the South Fork of the Snake and back, and after some gastronomically costly trial and error, we found a little truck stop between Idaho Falls and Pocatello that had some of the best road coffee I’ve ever tasted. You know the kind of place I’m talking about – they still sell local beer, fishing licenses, a few odd lures and gear for the local bait fishermen – and they still make a real cup of coffee.
I’m afraid those kinda truck stops are getting harder to find in these days of bland commercial conformity, but there are some still out there.
Thankfully you can find a genuine cup of coffee in most diners, local bakeries and donut shops (note the Texas spelling), though most of these are geared to serve the non-fishing, more normal cadre of the population and aren’t open at night when you really need that coffee push to get back home in time to grab four hours sleep before working in the morning.
Of course the odd fly shop or two will keep a pot going, at least in the morning. If you’re lucky enough to stumble into such a shop at sunrise tomorrow, drop a buck in the coffee fund and thank the guys (and gals) for brewing that pot of black magic.
Cheers.
[Image above is a genuine donut shop coffee from this morning in downtown Celina, Texas, the downtown being almost one square block in size (almost but not quite).]
