Life is to short for bad coffee.

 In the late 80s, I lived with my mother Lygia and stepfather Duffy in Far Rockaway Queens, NY. She worked as a clerk in the New York City Sheriff’s office and Duffy worked for the Department of Corrections.

Every day before going to work downtown my parents would stop at the local bodega and order coffee with a muffin or breakfast sandwich. Duffy’s coffee is black. Lygia’s coffee black, 2 creams, 1 sugar. This was our routine. The funny part is, the coffee served was basic black coffee, black or decaf.

New Yorkers found some comfort in the little cardboard coffee cup. The cup, known as the Anthora, is the blue-and-white drinking vessel that first became an icon of New York City in 1963.

Leslie Buck, a Czech-American immigrant, designed the first-ever to-go coffee cup to appeal to Greek-owned coffee shops and diners. With its customer-friendly “We Are Happy to Serve You” inscription and Greek-style letters, the Anthora has now become an important part of the city’s identity. New Yorkers still use this iconic cup to get their coffee.

In the early 90s, when Lygia’s diabetes to take a turn for the worst, we moved to Pocono Summit, PA. After 25 years of her fight with diabetes, she died at the age of 36. I was 12.

After the passing of my mother, my stepfather and I remained in our little house in PA. Since the bodega was no longer an option for coffee, Mr. Coffee pot was the next best thing. During his retirement years, he enjoyed writing. Part of being a writer required round-the-clock coffee, black. As a young child, I learned to make coffee with three simple items: Folgers grounded beans, freshwater, and 1 white coffee filter. Every morning and evening I made my stepfather a fresh pot.

When launching Jarhead Coffee, I received a common question, what makes your coffee so great?