"Gourmet" is a word much beloved of marketing VPs and advertsing copy writers, no more descriptive these days than "luxury" or "First Class".

For coffees, it seems to be employed for anything different than the mass production blended roasts of the major coffee "packagers". In many taste tests in recent years, even such long exalted types as "kona" and "Blue Mountain" have come up short.

Try coffees until you find one you like. In most cases, depending upon one's individual tastes, recently roasted beans ground immediately before brewing add more to appeal than exotic sources or wild claims or "gourmet" status.

Circumstances often do more for coffee than the beans or the preparation. Few cups of coffee will ever match the first sip from a steaming mug when assuming the Watch on the Bridge at 0400 (4AM) on cold night, even if the Messenger has forgotten to brew a fresh pot. Then there was that first drag on an unfiltered Camel, the memory of which is almost enough to send me back to smoking...