Coffee. It has been around for longer than computers have, and that's all we really need to know about its history.

There's a lot more to coffee than just "coffee", though. You can grind your own beans, use beans that have already been ground, or even get instant coffee, which also comes in all kinds of flavors.

The debates over which is better than which or how much better or worse instant coffee is compared to the "real thing" all really come down to personal taste. Some coffee aficionados gasp in horror when instant coffee fans tell them how much better than the real thing their sachet bound flavors are. Some real connoisseurs scoff at everyone else and demand the finest coffee beans delivered straight to them for grinding and drinking.

The quality of the bean will determine how effective and tasty the coffee is, so let's take a look at some of the offerings.

Coffee Beans

Good old straight plain coffee beans. You buy 'em yourself, grind 'em yourself and get straight coffee without any added crap. Unless of course they're factory made coffee beans. Do they exist? Great, THG will get shut down because of an attempt to uncover government mind control using coffee beans...

Anyway, yes, fresh coffee beans. Not much you can do with them 'cept make coffee, unless you're being very creative and have some weird fantasies. Or you're a film producer. Anyways, yes so err, that's them then. Well, apart from the huge variety of coffee beans that is out there. The modern coffee industry is very particular about telling you where each bean comes from, and there are various types such as Mocha and Java (anyone else seeing just how much programmers like coffee here?)

Ground Coffee

Or "Freeze Dried Instant Coffee" if you want to be unglamorous about it. Same as getting coffee beans except they've been ground down for you and freeze dried to keep in the flavor. The stuff is even more widely available than beans or the instant flavored hoopola and comes in more varieties than you can get in a googol. Between different types and different makers I could kill myself sampling it all to see what suits me best. Being lazy and sane instead I'd direct you to Google (not googol) to find out more about what might be best for you. Or just space out your sampling over a couple of weeks... I have a deadline to beat and apart from your proposed date with death I think you can find some time to go sampling coffee types at your leisure.

Instant Flavorings

As well as all the different types of beans and such on offer, some genius came out with the idea of complicating life further by sticking flavors in coffee and funny froths on top. As well as getting these with your other types of coffee, one can now buy handy sachets with powder in them that when given a drink of hot water and stirred makes halfway convincing café coffee.

For example you have espressos - ohh, didn't we cover what they are? Yes, it gets more and more complex - such as Mocha, which has undertones of chocolate to it. Though interestingly enough, there's no chocolate in actual mocha, though you do get cocoa in certain factory produced ones. Another is the famous cappuccino and all of its offshoots... the long and the short of it is that there is more variety in coffee than there is time to go through it all.

These instant coffees obviously are not as well made as the real thing, especially with espressos, the making of which is a fine art for many. But they do the job all the same, and I've found the best use of these is to make straight coffee an easier beverage to drink (as the taste is something to be acquired.)