Was coffee Linnman’s secret to success?

Paul Linnman, the intrepid TV news reporter behind the exploding whale video, retired from TV in 2004 and now works at Oregon radio station KEX. In a recent article, The Oregonian newspaper asked several well-known Oregonians, including Linnman, about their coffee habits. Linnman started his comments by saying:

I have only two remaining addictions: Coffee and ice cream, and I’m hooked on both for life.

About the coffee provided by the radio station, Paul says:

KEX provides very acceptable coffee, but I prefer to brew (with a Krups cone drip) my own each morning (around 3:30 a.m.) and pack my thermos to the radio station. It has to be Peet’s and it has to be French blend.

Like many in the Northwest, Linnman clearly loves his coffee. For his afternoon “pick-me-up,” Paul downs a 12-ounce Americano with “two shots of espresso, the rest water… but only half-filled with water.” (As a non-coffee drinker, I’m not even sure what that means!) 

Finally, when Linnman reveals that when he started drinking coffee as a teenager, his strict Swedish father forbid him from using cream and sugar, he concludes, “He’d be an enabler by today’s standards, but it was one of the best things he ever taught me.”

Unfortunately, dear readers, we are left to wonder if Paul Linnman’s coffee addiction was the secret gusto behind the dry humor and witty narration of his most famous work some 35 years ago on a smelly Oregon beach….