As I wheeled my cart around the snack chips and into the coffee and condiments aisle I was taken aback.
The meek and meager coffee selection which had existed for so long in my local Target had ceased to exist. Now, towering in front of and all around me were perfectly stacked, perfectly sealed bags of Arabica beans ripped from plants and mashed and grinded and soaked in flavor.
There were regular beans, espresso beans, decaf and latte. The aroma of a gathering, nay, a fiesta of coffee was strong and abrupt, like walking into a cigar bar after working as a perfume salesman all day. My cart came to a stop and I gandered around the aisle, the possibility that I’d just floated down a spacetime wormhole into an alternate universe entering my mind for a split second.
A woman with a squeaky cart rolled past me and mechanically reached for her usual coffee in its usual spot while staring at a grocery list, looking up with a confused face as her hand rested upon an unfamiliar bag. Then she read the label. Then looked around, amazed.
“Oh my, they really updated this section,” she thought aloud.
“…Indeed,” I replied, still taking it all in. I watched her scan the shelves and walk over and grab an orange bag and place it in her cart and start to leave. She stopped and grabbed another orange coffee bag and turned and said, “You should really try this Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. It’s delicious. Absolutely delicious.”
I had only seen this Dunkin’ Donuts coffee in movies. A cop pulling up to a precinct and fumbling his way out his squad car while balancing a to-go tray of white coffee cups, the words Dunkin’ Donuts on each one, a bag of donuts hanging, clenched between his teeth. Ben Affleck pulling up to Renaissance Man Matt Damon’s rundown house in Good Will Hunting with two plastic Dunkin’ Donuts cups in his hand, just below the noisy, swishing cuff of a Nike jumpsuit.
Needless to say, I had been wanting to try this famous coffee beverage for some time.
I grabbed a Hazelnut bag and bought my groceries and left and threw the plastic bags on the kitchen counter and savagely scoured through them for the orange bag as if it were Christmas and I knew a brand new Nintendo 64 awaited inside.
I find it and open it and smell the contents.
Dear God. This was no regular coffee. Heck, this wasn’t even coffee. This was some blend of everything good and enjoyable in this world. I’ve never seen a hazelnut, but upon poking my nose into the small opening of that Dunkin’ Donuts bag I was an aficionado. A connoisseur. Never again would I confuse this scent with any other. If someone were to try to convince me that some bland, watered down coffee labeled ‘hazelnut’ is their favorite and that I should try it, out of good conscience, and as a concerned citizen, I would feel it my duty to talk some sense into them.
My nose didn’t leave the bag as I walked to the coffee pot and grabbed a spoon and filter and some water and poured it in. I hesitantly broke away from the bag to put the spoon in and scoop three heaping piles into the filter.
I turned it on.
I sat down.
I waited.
It didn’t take long for the dripping into the pot to start, and soon my nose left the bag gripped in my hands as the aroma of Dunkin’ Donuts Hazelnut being brewed filled the air.
Drip drip drip.
Why hadn’t I tried this stuff before? I’d been drinking cheap coffee for years, never realizing that coffee greatness was only miles away in an air conditioned store the whole time.
The coffee was done. I shuffled to the pot and christened my favorite coffee mug with the dark liquid and poured cream and sugar. Just as I was stirring in the last of the sugar my brother walks out of his room after being awoken from a nap. My brother does not wake easily. Armageddon could be commencing and he’d be fast asleep, wrapped tightly in his thick sheets.
“What’s that……,” he says as he sniffs crazily, “that……smell?”
“Oh this?” I point to the steaming mug, spoon clinking as I stir. “This is Dunkin’ Donuts. Hazelnut.”
“They got one in town now?” He said as he yawned.
“Nah. Got it from the store. Here,” I say as I gesture to the pot, “come enjoy some.”
He pours a cup and we clink mugs and sip the hot coffee. Now, when I say sip, I don’t mean sip, as in casually drinking a beverage during a meal or what have you. Nay, we sipped this fine coffee as if it were red wine flown in from handpicked reserves in South America on air-conditioned planes with a coffee guard on duty twenty-four seven, checking IDs and credentials, making sure no one gains access to this rare and elusive delicacy.
My pallet went into shock. My tongue became confused. With so little taste buds and so much flavor, it was an unfair match.
The second this coffee hit my lips, I knew. I knew that this is what coffee really was. Folgers? Nope. Starbucks? Not a chance. Community Coffee? Get the hell out of my office.
For a second I was unsure whether I was really drinking coffee or not. Maybe I had picked up some dessert beverage, or possibly rich and luxurious coffee only available to disgustingly rich business tycoons. I checked the coffee bag. Yep. It was indeed Dunkin’ Donuts coffee.
To say that one does not need lots of cream and sugar to fully enjoy all that is the Dunkin’ would be an understatement. One could brew this stuff and shower it into a glass or mug and enjoy. Heck, eat it straight from the bag even. Go crazy. Sprinkle it on your oatmeal. Pour some milk into it and spoon feed yourself whilst watching saturday morning cartoons.
Visions of a Dunkin’ Donuts Hazelnut shower installed in my bathroom flashed in my mind. Me jumping out of bed even before the alarm goes off. Leaping and sprinting like a gazelle to the bathroom. Coffee spewing from every pour of the showerhead, already mixed with just the right amount of cream and sugar. My boss calling and asking where I am. “Sorry. Not gunna make it in today. Got a cold. A real bad one.” I digress…
Dunkin’ Donuts Hazelnut coffee is the next best thing to pure happiness in this day and age, and for only $7, it’s a steal.
