What? No DECAF!!
Posted by Mark Faram on May 31st, 2008 filed in USS Kitty Hawk
Coffee makes the Navy run. Sure, there’s jet fuel for the aircraft and marine diesel for the boilers on the Kitty Hawk, but it’s fair to say nothing would move on this ship, and the Navy for that matter, if it wasn’t for coffee.
Call it a cup of joe or mud, it’s everywhere on the Kitty Hawk — and any other Navy ship — but it is not like Starbucks, except for three latte machines, two of which are in the wardroom and one in the chief petty officer’s mess. But for the most part, there’s nothing fancy about it, just plain old coffee. And there’s no decaf onboard unless you make it yourself.
“We use only regular coffee, no decaf here,” said Culinary Specialist 2nd Class Aaron Tomberella, who handles breakouts for the crew’s messes
When the ship is at sea, Tomberella says he issues 30, 2.44 pound cans of coffee each week — a total of 73.20 pounds per week underway. With 240 cups per can, that means there’s 7,200 cups consumed each week for a total of 230,400 served in all the ship’s galleys annually.
To some, that number might seem a little low, but that doesn’t include coffee served while in port and for Kitty Hawk, it also doesn’t reflect the ship’s consumption of Japanese coffee products that were sold from vending machines located near the ship’s mess decks. But even there, no decaf was available.
