Are my cruise buddies the best or what! This was the first time I was taking a cruise vacation and I didn't know anyone on board. The plan was to get to know a whole bunch of strangers and just disconnect from the rest of the world for the month long cruise!
And I couldn't have probably asked for a better bunch of strangers to share the cruise with - almost every single one of them were coffee lovers! Since day 1 we've been gulping down cups after cups of coffee for breakfast....for a late afternoon chat...even after dinner (this was strictly against my policy....but what the hell! I'm on vacation)! We were all having a blast - I mean, you can't go wrong with coffee conversations, eh!
But every good thing has its drawbacks and having such a bunch of easy going coffee lovers on board had too! The cruise was not loaded (with coffee of course, not gunpowder!) heavily enough for the amount of coffee we consumed on a daily basis! They had stocked up for "normal" people, we were extraordinary! And so, by day 15 of the tour we were told the cruise had run out of coffee and with our destination port still 13 more days away - we were in for a long, long coffee drought!
The outrage this created was alarming! Tables were thumped, chairs were upturned (I am pretty sure I saw a few huge ripples in the water that could be nothing but something heavy from the cruise's deck drowning), voices were raised, unspeakable words spoken...
As a medical doctor, it didn't take me long to realize that my "coffee buddies" were no ordinary coffee lovers. They were true "addicts!" And if something was not done soon to satiate their caffeine cravings, well....let's just say I didn't see us making it through the remaining 13 days unscathed.
I was pretty pissed myself at the thought of being without any coffee for the remaining days of the trip - just spoils the whole fun - but someone had to remain rational and find a way to navigate us through the crisis. I quickly slipped away from the raging crowd as the cruise crew attempted in vain to exert some form of control.
I quicky went up to the manager and introduced myself as a Doctor and informed him of the seriousness of the issue we had at hand.
He confided in me that he did have his own personal stack of coffee in his room, but there's no way there would be enough for everyone for the rest of the tour.
"Well, that's a start. We're not zeroed out!" I said to the manager.
"But what are we going to do, doc?"
I thought for a while and asked him, "Well, what about tea? Do we have that stocked?"
Turned out, because everyone was so much into coffee, the tea stock was almost untouched. We had at least a months' supply. But even suggesting the idea of Tea as a substitute to coffee would have my "buddies" demand my head on the table! But that wasn't really my plan.
I was going to present to them, a very bad coffee as an alternative to no coffee at all! And from experience, I could almost guarantee the manager that the people was going to accept this with open arms!
"But doc, won't they realize that this is just tea we're serving them?"
"Oh of course not. We won't really be serving them "JUST" tea now will we?!"
I explained to the manager that the plan was to mix 20% ground coffee beans with 80% tea. Coffee generally having a much stronger flavor than regular tea - the 20% would be enough to overpower the flavour of tea into something coffee-ish!
After a couple of hours of mixing and experimenting, we had prepared just the right blend and enough to suffice us for the rest of the trip.
As chaos reigned the deck, I called out for a bit of calm. The passengers seemed to be willing to listen to me more than they were to the crew - if anything, they'd tear the crew limb from limb if they were to have their way!
"Guys, I have some good news and some bad news!"
I waited for the deck to go silent. Then I continued,
"Well, the manager and I have been scouring the entire cruise for the last couple of hours to scrape out any possible coffee left over from previous trips. And luckily enough, we found a batch from quite some time ago!"
There was an uproar of delight and clapping. I raised my hand to quiet them down and continued,
"But the bad news is, because these coffee blend is from so long ago, it might actually taste like shit!"
I watched the delight quickly start to fade away from the faces in front of me and I hastily added,
"But hey, it's still coffee right? And even bad coffee is better than coffee!"
And then the crowd slowly started to murmur,
"...yeah, it's still coffee alright!"
"...bad coffee is still better than no coffee, yeah!"
The murmur gradually turned into chorus and there was delight again on the faces of the crowd!
The chaos on the deck quickly settled as a new chaos stirred in my mind - the chaos of violating some fresh coffee ground, with tea leaves.
Haha I love it. Now this sounds like an apocalypse to me! No coffee!! But the solution was just spot on and very clever. Love it.
Would you believe it if I said the idea actually came from personal experience when one morning I had neither enough coffee, nor tea for one cup - and I just mixed both to make myself something very disgusting before rushing off to class!
Hahahaha yes I'd believe it... Gross though 🤣🤣
Oh, my coffee-tea, that’s a unique solution. Very imaginative!
Haha Thanks! I am rarely this confused about a topic! The topic was a real brain squeeze!
The doc out to save the day by devising a means unknowing to the people. Nice trick there and an entertaining story
Thanks :D Glad you enjoyed it!
Greetings friends, very interesting that combination that you managed to make, so that you can be calm and continue with the celebration the remaining 13 days of the trip, because when one creates a vice with caffeine is almost impossible to leave it.
Yep absolutely! A calm head was needed to navigate through the "rough seas" hehe!
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hahahaha jeez, how many cups a day did these guys have?!
My friend just came to visit and he's a big tea guy. There is something really special about drinking tea in tiny cups where you are encouraged to take your time and enjoy each sip and the pouring is a kind of meditative but casual ceremony. It feels like there is more than just caffeine in the tea.
I mean coffee is great, but give tea a chance people!
I must say it does have a very "Royal" vibe to it. I picture mostly people in Britain when I see or think about elegant tea pouring :D
I have actually tried quite a few variants of tea and the one I like most is milk tea with some regular spices. Most of the others I couldn't just become a fan of, although the British Earl Grey is something I could enjoy in the late afternoons!
I'm actually talking about Chinese tea, I am all about the Asian teas (and sometimes Rooibos, although I have no idea what I'm drinking half the time, just go along for the ride.
This is how we drink when we are feeling royal :-D There is always enough silence to really enjoy the moment, I don't get that often in my life.
Oh absolute holy crap! I love the ancient and vintage Chinese tea cups! I lived in China for nearly 6 years and even though I didn't quite enjoy the taste of plain green tea, I would never deny a cup just for the experience of drinking in those gorgeous, yet simple cups!
I usually go for the oolongs and puers, once again, no idea what im drinking, but can never go wrong with tie guanyin. No shit! Where did you live?
I've heard of Oolongs, no idea if I ever actually got to drink it though haha - I'm the same like you, never knew much of what tea it was lol!
I was in Hangzhou! 3 years near Zijingang, 2 and a half around Hua Jia Chi.
woaaah, I spent exactly one night in Hangzhou and had a crappy show, the place wasn't set up for a concert so I had to play with a broken mic and broken amp, but I hear it's an awesome city sometimes. I was mostly in Xiamen and Guangzhou :-D
wow, that was a good save. I can imagine the headache people had without a cup of coffee.
I myself get a headache if I miss my daily dose hehe!