Dark, mysterious and ..... richly roasted

Throughout my life I've often turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. To my teachers: universally,  my wife: frequently, my Bishop: who knows? Sure, I am an Area Dean, but as every Anglican knows, Area Dean is the highest position an Anglican clergyman can attain to before actually becoming important. To my children: probably not a disappointment, but certainly an embarrassment. In fact- truth be known- I'm often a bit of a disappointment to myself, and nowhere is that sad fact truer than in the serious matter of coffee for fishing.

 

Now, it's no secret that I am a coffee lover, and, no doubt to the detriment of my health, I drink gallons of the stuff. In fact, fishing is in part responsible for my coffee addiction- back in my childhood winter fishing was a painful business, sitting huddled in a thin anorak wearing woolen fingerless gloves knitted by my grandmother- heck, you could almost feel the chilblains growing on your feet as biteless hour followed frozen biteless hour; sometimes our hands got so cold that by the next day the skin would crack and start bleeding. It wasn't a pastime for the faint hearted. The consolation was the coffee. Hot, sweet (in those days I took sugar - tons of it!) and contained in a 1970's tartan thermos flask it was the consolation for all the suffering.

 

 

And so, to return to where we started- my disappointment and self recrimination. You see, the thing is my friend Greg (pictured above), although a relatively recent convert to the gentle art of angling has already left me trailing in his wake when it comes to the art of the bankside cuppa. He brings a selection of high quality coffees in sachets, boils a kettle and presents himself (or me, if I'm fishing in the next swim and looking pitiful enough) with a wide array of lattes, espressos or coffees in various strengths from different provenances. I, by contrast, occasionally go to the bother of bringing a small jar of instant coffee granules and boiling a kettle, as in the picture at the top of the page, but far too often make do with a flask of cheap stuff from home, which incrementally gets less hot as the session progresses.

 

 

For a coffee lover it really is unforgiveable that I should be so wanting in the piscatorial coffee department. Every season I tell myself that "this year it'll be different- I'll buy a Kelly Kettle, bring a small cafetiere to the bank along with some fine, Fairtrade proper coffee, something dark, richly roasted and strong enough to make my eyes bleed." But I never do. Every year the rod licence, the day tickets, bait and constant replenishing of fishing essentials and consumables eats up my fishing "allowance", every Christmas or birthday sees new rods and reels added to the armoury, and the Kelly Kettle, the cafetiere and the quality coffees remain an unfulfilled aspiration. One year it'll change for the better, but it won't be this year, and (between you and me) next year's not looking too likely either. "Anyone for a lukewarm cuppa from the flask?" Thought not.