I am under the influence. Ramped up in a large way. Mr. Buzz, if you will. I am your java-enabled, caffeine-soaked, glow-in-the-dark guy. Coffee courses through my veins. I possess all the jive on joe. Juan Valdez has nothing on me. I've been dripped, perked, French-pressed, boiled and strained. Got coffee? Hell yes.

All of which is to say, I'm fresh from a massive coffee-tasting, ready to report back to you on where to get the best plain and simple cup of coffee.

A coffee lover who grinds beans every morning and buys freshly roasted coffee in small amounts, I first spent some time finding out about the brew.

Coffee was first discovered in Ethiopia. The popular legend is that a goatherd named Kaldi observed his goats acting unusually frisky after eating berries from a bush. Curious, Kaldi ate some, which he found to give him excess energy. The news spread throughout the region. Monks, so the story goes, heard about this amazing fruit and dried the berries in order to carry them to distant monasteries. They reconstituted the dried berries in water, ate the fruit and drank the liquid in order to stay awake during prayer.

Over time, coffee berries were taken to the Arabian Peninsula and were first cultivated in what is now Yemen. From there, coffee traveled to Turkey, where the beans apparently were first roasted before being crushed and boiled with water.

Coffee first reach Europe through Venetian merchants. Clerics called it the drink of the devil. But they were overruled by a coffee-drinking pope, who pronounced it a truly Christian beverage.

Coffee came to the New World in the 1700s by means of a French infantry captain, who nurtured one small plant on its slow voyage across the Atlantic. This one plant, which took root on Martinique, became parent of more than 19 million plants on the Caribbean island within 50 years. Soon it was being grown all over the American tropics.

Equipped with this knowledge, and accompanied by a small group of friends and co-workers as fellow tasters, I visited 13 coffee spots around Honolulu. Each of us ordered a simple cup of coffee, or the house blend in places where there was a choice of coffee types. We went to all kinds of places. Predictably, the coffee in specialty shops was uniformly better, but we were surprised to find an acceptable brew at a 7-Eleven as well.

Coffee-tasting terminology is similar to that of wine tasting. Words like body, acidity, aroma, fruity, nutty, spicy and so on flew about as we tasted and talked. We purposely veered away from flavored coffees and specialized espresso drinks such as cappuccinos and lattes. Here are our conclusions:

• 7-Eleven's Royal Kona blend (85 cents, 12-ounce cup) is mellow and smooth; we thought it was much better than the Sam Choy's Volcano coffee they serve, which was a bit harsh.
• Zippy's serves Yuban coffee (92 cents, 10 ounces), which tasted carbony (burnt charcoal overtones).
• Jack-in-the-Box (89 cents, 12 oz) coffee was watery and thin, lacking acidity, seems to have been under-brewed.
• Honolulu Coffee Co.'s Kona blend (25 percent beans from Kona), freshly roasted ($1.25, 8 ounces), was rich, round and full of flavor. The real deal.
• Dunkin' Donuts ($1.19, 10 oz) coffee was too subtly flavored, lacked body. Too bad, this chain was once recognized for wonderful coffee.
• Mocha Java's house blend ($1, 12 ounces) had a nutty, full flavor, and smooth taste.
• McDonalds (99 cents, 20 ounces) may have been the worst of the lot; the flavor was a bit dirty and sour.
• Burger King (93 cents, 16 ounce) was flat and thin-bodied.
• Starbucks ($1.35, 8 ounces) was serving Verona coffee, 20 percent of which is dark Italian roast, 80 percent is what's called Yukon blend. Pretty strong stuff.
• Coffee Cove ($1.25, 8 ounces) was serving a French roast this day, a big roasted flavor.
• Coffee Gallery in Halei'wa ($1.35 12 ounce) was serving Moloka'i coffee, a step down (in strength) from French roast. It was rich and balanced; the coffee is always freshly roasted here.
• My personal favorite, Coffee Talk in Kaimuki, ($1, 8 ounces) was pouring Santa Catarina, a shade-grown organic coffee from Mexico. The flavor was medium-roasted, with excellent body and a hint of sweetness. Check out their brand-new, computerized roaster: perfect beans every time.

Reach Matthew Gray at mgray@HonoluluAdvertiser.com.