jotsheet

Every few months, you come across a simple fact that everyone but you seems to know. Such was the case for me last week. Who knew that brown pots were for caffeinated coffee and orange pots were for decaf? Evidently, everyone but me.

It started when I was making a fresh pot of regular coffee at work. John, who drinks regular, walked up to get some coffee, but saw that I was using the orange pot, so he assumed I was making decaf. “Aw, I need a cup of coffee—too bad you’re making decaf,” he says.

I was making regular, of course, and I told him. So why are you using the orange pot, he asks. I tell him, “it doesn’t matter what color the pot is, it matters whether it’s on the bottom warmer or the top warmer. The top warmer is for decaf, the bottom is for regular.”

Durr. Now in the back of my mind, for the past six months, I’d been thinking, “what a stupid system this is. When someone makes a new cup of coffee, it has to be on the bottom warmer, since that’s where the water comes through. But if that’s the location for regular and they’re making decaf, do they have to babysit the coffee and warn everyone that what’s brewing is actually decaf?” I knew “the system”—at least the one in my head—was horribly conceived. And yet I failed to innovate.

So I now readily accept the color-coding system over the position system. But here’s what still gets me: why orange for decaf and brown for regular? Why not the other way around? The color orange is like, fiery, and spirited, and stuff. That’s caffeine. Brown is muted. That’s decaf. But the system is the other way around.

My solution: brown for regular and green for decaf. Just seems more appropriate.