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Often-reviled brew Survey: Coffee not among job perks By DAVID PRESZLER It's the brew people love to hate. The office coffee that inspires stops at specialty shops on the way to work and draws comparisons to mud. In the Mail Tribune newsroom, it's a caffeine fix called "sludge." If you hate the coffee served in your office, you're not alone. According to a Gallup survey, 70 percent of workers aren't satisfied with office brew. A sampling of Rogue Valley offices Tuesday morning found plenty of coffee snobs thumbing their noses at the company pot. "Our office coffee is mud," says Sherie Cain-McSweeney of Rogue Federal Credit Union's Royal Avenue branch. "We order in." Co-worker Julie Cerro faced one of modern life's little dilemmas on her way in. Get gas or stop for coffee? She picked gas, but drove for coffee later. "I only drink Medford Coffee Company," adds a co-worker, Paula LeRoy. "I only drink it if it tastes pretty much like hot chocolate. Poor Folgers. They aren't making any money off us." Across McAndrews Road at AmeriTitle, office coffee has a staunch defender: Tom Lance. Lance says you'd have to count him in the 30 percent that are "very satisfied" with the office brew. AmeriTitle's house brew, Folgers delivered by Coffee Break Service, comes pre-ground and pre-measured. "We don't have to do anything," Lance says. He claims to drink four to five cups a day, drawing chuckles from co-workers who say it's more like five or 10. If there's coffee left at day's end, they call Lance to see if he wants it before it's dumped. They know one co-worker who doesn't want it: Susan Moore, the one with the Dutch Bros. cup on her desk. She says she hits a Dutch Bros. stand whenever she has the money, "at least three times a week." At Specialized Foreign Car Service on Beatty Street, Dave Sanger says only two of seven employees regularly partake of the house brew, "down-and-dirty Folgers." "I bring my own," Sanger says. "It's better than not having anything," Richard Baize says of the canned stuff. When he worked at Butler Acura a few years back, Baize brought a grinder and French roast to work. He hasn't done that here yet. But like the mechanic he is, he has a backup machine in the garage. Gourmet coffee houses have responded to disgruntled javaheads not only with drive-throughs but in at least two cases (Dutch Bros. and Mellelo Coffee Roasters) with cardboard carry-outs. Starbucks, which commissioned the Gallup survey, has launched a program that allows any business to get its coffee delivered. And the Rogue Valley's largest employer, Bear Creek Corp., has plans for an onsite specialty coffee shop for its employees. The survey found that 81.9 million Americans drink coffee in the work place, an average of 3.4 cups a day each. An estimated 52.3 million get it at work. It found only 30 percent were "very satisfied" with office coffee. Some 45 percent were "somewhat satisfied," 15 percent "not very satisfied" and 10 percent "not at all satisfied." Those most likely to be dissatisfied were residents of the West who regularly drink specialty or whole-bean coffees. Women are pickier than men, and those from 35 to 49 were the most dissatisfied age group. Some, like Conchita Moore at Rogue Federal, figure coffee is coffee. As her co-workers berate the office coffee, Moore pours some and shrugs. "I don't smoke and I don't drink," she says, "but I have to have my coffee." Today's Business Index Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA