Cuppa Java

There's something about a cup of coffee first thing in the morning--the aroma, the warmth, the steam, the rich flavor. Even the mug...the thick white diner cups, that hand-thrown mug you found at a thrift shop, or the souvenir mug from Amish country. Whatever that cup of coffee is, in Alaska it seems to be obligatory.

Yes, we have tea drinkers, here at Camp Denali/North Face Lodge although I find tea in the morning lacks...well...a lot. Being from Boston, where drinking tea smacks of Royalism, I find I mostly drink tea in private, in the afternoon, in the winter. But coffee? The morning doesn't start without coffee. The drive doesn't start without coffee. Judging from the stream of guests entering the lodge before breakfast, their day doesn't start without coffee.

I shoehorned a trip to Anchorage into my last two days off. Not a particularly relaxing pair of days, but the trip was productive. The list for Wednesday left little time to spare--battery for MJ's watch, contact lens solution for Sarah, thread and fabric for a FallFest gift, meet Carley (for coffee) and pick up some stuff to bring back to Camp, stop by the bead store for supplies, run by Nordstrom for skin care products, swing into Starbucks for some Pike Place Blend--Decaf, and be done in time for dinner with friends. The next morning at 7:00, I was in the car (with a travel mug of coffee) and on the way back north.

But on the drive I was impressed by the sheer number of small coffee shacks one sees here in Alaska. These are little more than ice-fishing structures, taller than they are wide, with a door on one side for the proprietor, and a window on the other side where you drive up and communicate your order. Some sport hand-made signs, others blink brightly with neon. Nenana Coffee is, predictably, in Nenana. Right by the side of the road on the south side of town, and the only decent coffee between Healey and Fairbanks--roughly two and a half hours of driving.

Driving south to Anchorage that morning from the entrance to Denali National Park (withOUT a cup of coffee because nothing--that is, the Chevron station in Cantwell--was open at 4:45 a.m.), I was distracted first by the beauty of the drive, even on a rainy morning, but second, by the presence, every so often, of coffee shacks. At Trapper Creek, there is a huge building where you can get everything from a shower to liquor to propane to coffee; at the Talkeetna turn-off, there is a Subway that carries Seattle's Best Coffee (yes, I did, it's a four and a half hour drive). Then in Houston I saw a vehicle license plate: XPR-SSO. Then a sign for Aroma Borealis. In Anchorage there are Common Grounds, Terra Bella Coffee, Kaladi Brothers Coffee, Kobuk Coffee, and (I'm not sure why) Bustin' Ass Coffee. Walking through the Town Park in Anchorage, you almost can't hear conversations for the sound of milk steamers chorrrrrrffshshs-ing.

Maybe this is one of the reasons I love Alaska--pretty good coffee no matter where you look. Maybe the puns tickle the English major in me. Perhaps it's the entreprenurial spirit that resonates--Eklutna Coffee even has an E-Z return to expressway sign. Zip off the highway, swing through to get your coffee, back on the road again. You can set up business for the cost of a commercial-grade espresso machine. Demand and supply. Add a clever name? You've got cash flow.

Next time I drive south, though--in September after my last work day here--I will stop at Aroma Borealis. The name draws me in as surely as the olfactory promise.