Picard may love his Earl Grey, hot, Worf prefers prune juice, and the Cardassians can’t get enough kanar, but all those potables pale in comparison to the beverage Starfleet really runs on: coffee. More vital than plasma fluid, coffee’s what keeps admirals and ensigns alike up and alert whenever the Romulans attack or there’s a space-time continuum anomaly to be puzzled through. So, without further ado, I bring you the Greatest Coffee Moments in Starfleet History:
10. The Hangover Cure
Normally, Starfleet’s greatest lush orders his coffee Irish. But, after a wild night with some Klingons in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Dr. McCoy requested it Janeway-style: “I’m gonna need a pot of black coffee,” he mumbled when he had to go on duty the next morning. Jadzia Dax also required the black stuff after her fateful “bachelorette party” – especially after Worf found out about the, um, unpleasantness with her future mother-in-law.
9. Coolest Travel Mugs Ever
The Defiant was one sweet ship: fast, sleek, heavily-armed, and outfitted with some really great travel mugs. I want a travel mug with U.S.S. Defiant on it so badly, I can’t even tell you.
8. Where No Bean Has Gone Before
Captain Archer has a lot to answer for, but one thing he did right was to introduce Earth’s favorite caffeinated beverage to parts of the universe that did not yet know about its miraculous properties. In “Oasis,” he serves some to alien trader D’Marr, who likes it so much he accepts ten pounds of beans in exchange for information about the whereabouts of a downed ship. I like to imagine D’Marr took the beans back home with him, where his people learned to synthesize them and became a planet of java junkies.
7. Of Course It Sucks – It’s Decaffeinated!
When Kira is carrying the O’Briens’ baby, Miles worries his little one will be born a raktajino addict, so he has Quark create a decaf brew for Kira to drink. She takes one sip of the foul-tasting “Quark-tajino” and that plan gets tossed out the airlock. (And, in a deleted scene, Quark gets tossed out the airlock too for daring to serve Kira decaf, the p’tahk!)
6. The Beans That Beat The Borg
In “Hunters,” Janeway delivers one of the greatest paeans to the brew in television history: “Coffee: the finest organic suspension ever devised. It’s got me through the worst of the last three years. I beat the Borg with it.” Take that, Earl Grey.
5. The Way To A Bajoran’s Heart
In his morning security briefings with Major Kira, Odo always makes sure he has a hot raktajino ready and waiting for her – because he’s in love with her, but also because he knows that, without her coffee, Kira’s even more likely than usual to go on a bloody, Cardie-killing rampage.
4. One With The Java
And so, when Odo develops his shape-shifting abilities to the point where he can appear to eat and drink, what beverage does he choose to emulate? Not Diet Coke, that’s for sure. (Actually, Odo doesn’t seem to have thought that one through that carefully. Given the number of coffee fiends on DS9, there’s a distinct possibility he might get swallowed.)
3. Need A Warm-Up, Captain Kirk?
Phasers. Great for killing your enemies, stunning people who get in your way, blasting down doors, and . . . keeping your coffee toasty. In “The Corbomite Maneuver,” Kirk is surprised when Yeoman Rand serves him a piping-hot cup of java. “I thought the galley wasn’t open,” he remarks. “I pulled out my hand phaser and zap! – hot coffee,” Rand replies. Ah, to live in the days when firing your phaser on board wouldn’t bring security down on your head.
2. Give Those Beans A Medal
What to do when the effects of a black hole have knocked out everyone on your ship (except you, as you have Vulcan!Super!Powers!) and you need to wake your captain up to help you fly the thing? Give him a cup of high-test. That’s how T’Pol, using a little ingenuity and a lot of good strong brew, saved the Enterprise in “Singularity.”
1. “There’s Coffee In That Nebula!”
In the most coffee-centric episode of Trek, the most coffee-centric of captains risks flying her crew into a nebula because she can’t go another day without her beloved brew. Oh, Janeway might say she needed the energy from the nebula to run the warp core or something, but we know what her real motivation was.
Bonus: Janeway’s Java Jive
Check out this fun YouTube tribute to Janeway’s mad love for the bean:
(Thanks to TrekCore, Memory Alpha, and dreamsavvy.)
