The Coffee Has Returned to the Microwave

The coffee was made at 9am.

It was good coffee. It was made correctly, at the correct temperature, with an appropriate amount of care given the morning. The first third was consumed with attention. The second third became cold while something else was happening. The third third is the subject of this essay.

The Pattern

The coffee was made at 9am and consumed partially before 9:15, when something required immediate attention. The attention was given. The coffee waited.

By 10am, the coffee was cold. It was reheated for ninety seconds. This produced coffee that was correct in temperature but had been heated and cooled once, which is a different category of coffee from coffee that has only been heated once. This was not acknowledged. The coffee continued.

By 10:45, it was cold again. A sixty-second reheat was chosen because the ninety had produced results that were too hot, and time spent waiting for coffee to cool is time not spent on the thing the coffee was meant to support. The sixty-second reheat produced coffee that was warm rather than hot, which is acceptable but represents a declining trajectory.

The Assessment

It is now 12:30pm. The same cup of coffee, which has now been heated three times across a period of three and a half hours, is cold again. It is being evaluated for a third reheat.

The coffee is not being abandoned. It is being managed.

The third reheat would produce coffee that is technically the same cup, made with the same beans, at the same time, by the same person, but which has undergone a series of thermal events that have changed its composition in ways that are perceptible even if not examined. It is the Ship of Theseus of beverages. At what point does a reheated coffee become a new coffee?

The Decision

The coffee was reheated. It was fine. It was consumed before it got cold again, under the pressure of awareness that it was the third reheat and further management would be undignified.

A new coffee was made at 1pm. It was consumed entirely before 1:20pm.

This is the correct way to have coffee. The 9am coffee taught this lesson. The lesson was applied at 1pm. Tomorrow the 9am coffee will happen again.