🚫☕ Decaf Is a Red Flag: Freedom Hits Different When You’re Caffeinated AF

⚓ Mission Log (Read This First):
This blog started as your typical Boomer-Gen X Navy rant: salty, sarcastic, and fueled by black coffee and unresolved trauma.  Having served over a quarter century on active duty,  I was getting ready to launch into my full salty sea dog mode, but then I spoke to my son (Editors note - I am 57) and we were joking around about how Gen Z speaks differently.  

 

So this DECKLOG blog version is fully remastered for Gen Z. For the Sailors who are actually fighting wars today and post memes, who crush pre-workout and sip cold brew out of a hydroflask with a morale patch.  I honestly get sick and tired of hearing people say "today's younger generation has problems."  My suggestion, just go watch them Stand The Watch.  They're showing up and eagerly look forward to what lies ahead in their lives with courage and conviction, while I have more years behind me than ahead of me.  So this one is a bit little tongue and cheek and you expect nothing less, but hey #DecafIsTyranny!!

 

Welcome to “Decaf Is a Red Flag” — same values, upgraded vibes, and zero tolerance for lukewarm bean water.

Same energy. More chaos. Let’s go.

🧨 1776 Was a Hard Launch

Picture this: It’s 1776. A bunch of colonists hard-launch their breakup with King George by straight-up yeeting tea into Boston Harbor. They’re done. No chill. Full send.

Did they sip herbal blends after that? No. They brewed coffee that tasted like bark, revenge, and boot polish — and they liked it that way. They weren’t weak. They didn’t ask for almond milk. They said, “freedom or die... but let me get one more cup of that savage roast first.”

Even Thomas Jefferson — certified Founding Father, Declaration ghostwriter, and probably the first guy to wear a powdered wig unironically — called coffee “the favorite drink of the civilized world.”
Translation? If you’re drinking decaf… uncivilized behavior. Seek help.

And just so we’re clear: they didn’t even have decaf back then. The first attempts to make it showed up in the early 1900s and involved soaking beans in actual benzene — aka, “flammable cancer water.” It wasn’t just bad, it was chemically unhinged.
By WWII? Yeah, technically decaf was around (shoutout to Sanka), but no one at Midway was sipping that nonsense while launching Wildcats off a pitching deck. They drank the real stuff. Because they had battles to win, not brunches to attend.

So if you’re the kind of person who asks, “Do you have a decaf option?” just know:

• You’re being judged.

• By us.

• By history.

• And probably by Thomas Jefferson’s ghost.

☠️ We Have Some Core Beliefs

Let’s get something straight:

• 🗽 Freedom isn’t free — but it is caffeinated.

• ⚓ The Navy-Marine Corps team is America’s “Away Team.” We’re never the home team. We don’t get home games.

• ☕ Decaf? That’s a lifestyle choice we don’t totally understand — like cargo shorts at a formal event. If your mug says “Live, Laugh, Love” and your roast says “mild,” we’re just gonna assume you’re in your self-care era… and we respect that… from a distance.

This isn’t about preference. This is about principles. Your ancestors did not cross oceans, win wars, or stand the midwatch for you to drink sadness disguised as coffee.

🔥 Old Salt Coffee: Built Different (Like...Unstable but Reliable)

Let’s break it down — our lineup of roasts, rated by caffeine content, emotional baggage, and how likely they are to start a fistfight in the smoke pit: 

• ☕ Liberty Call = summer on the pier with a perfect sunset and 3 hours left of freedom before muster. It's smooth, just enough caffeine to stay charming, and pairs well with sea stories and bad decisions. Ideal for sipping on the pier while pretending not to hear your name called for working party.

• ☕ Silent Service = brewed in a galley smaller than a walk-in closet by a guy named Senior Chief who hasn't blinked since 2003. Tastes like secrets, ballast, and pressure. Designed for those who prefer to spend months underwater with 130 other people and no sunlight. If this blend had a ringtone, it’d be total radio silence.

• ☕ Green Eyes = not just a dark roast — this is night ops in a cup. It tastes like controlled aggression and sleep deprivation. If you’ve ever said, “I’ll sleep when the mission’s over,” this one’s for you. Also good for drinking while lying to your mom that you're “not in danger” and sending her memes from undisclosed locations.

• ☕ Haze Gray = this one’s got more caffeine than your ex had red flags. Brewed for the midwatch. Inspired by bulkhead-staring, shipboard boredom, and that one JO who’s always too awake at 0200. It smells like discipline, disappointment, and old sea stories that are legally unverifiable.

• ☕ Brown Shoe Blend = if you've ever landed a jet on a boat in bad weather while yelling at yourself internally and flipping switches like you're in a Marvel movie — congrats, this is your coffee. Bonus flavor if you pour it into a mug so stained the EPA would classify it as a biohazard. Also excellent if your upper lip could be charged with a UCMJ violation for mustache length.

• ☕ Battleship Blend = the most "hold my coffee, I got this" blend we’ve got. Medium-dark roast, max drama. Tastes like power projection, pre‑workout rage, and saltwater. One sip and you're hearing voices yell “FIRE FOR EFFECT!” in the background while patriotic eagles fly by in formation.

We roast fresh. No warehouse dust. No sad shelf coffee that’s been sitting longer than a Chief at his first NJP. Every bag is crafted with the same chaotic precision as a re-enlistment ceremony held next to a jet intake.

And for every bag sold, we donate $1 to real-deal nonprofits that support real-deal people — Sailors, Submariners, Aviators, Special Ops families, and the historic ships that carried our stories.
If it matters, we support it. If it’s cringe, we block it.

📸 Your 4th of July Battle Plan

Here’s how to not embarrass yourself this Independence Day:

1. Ditch the decaf. Block it. Report it. Let it go.

2. Grab something with teeth. Haze Gray, Silent Service, Green Eyes — whatever slaps the hardest.

3. Take a pic of yourself hoisting your mug. Bonus points for bad tattoos, American flag Crocs, and that one friend who always grills shirtless.

4. Tag us with #HoistAMug and #DecafIsTyranny so we can find our people and roast the weak ones.

😤 Freedom Isn’t Soft. Your Coffee Shouldn’t Be Either.

You don’t need fireworks to feel patriotic. You need a mug hot enough to melt the Solo cup in your hand and scare the HOA.

Whether you’re deployed, TDY, standing duty, or just treating a backyard BBQ like it’s a sanctioned military operation, hoist your mug. Sip something strong. Toast the ones who are still doing the work — so the rest of us can stress about grilling temps and ketchup shortages.

Because here’s the truth:

• Nobody remembers the guy who brought LaCroix to the fight.

• Nobody gets inspired by “half-caff vanilla drizzle.”

• And nobody — and we mean nobody — out-coffees an Old Salt.

🚨 Final Dispatch: Send It or Stand Down

This July 4th, we don’t want your “lite roast,” your “half caff,” or your “can I get it iced?” energy.

We want:

• Boots on the ground or a steel deck.

• Mugs in the air.

• And zero apologies for drinking something strong enough to start a diplomatic incident.

So hoist a mug.
Send it loud.
And drink coffee like the nation depends on it, because maybe it actually does.