While some men might spend their days dozing off in their retirement, there is little chance of that happening for Mark Melvin.The retired BIAS Ltd executive has taken up a passion for coffee. And don’t give him any of that decaffeinated stuff.Mr Melvin has just released a guide to the best coffee shops on the Island, ‘Best Bermuda Coffee 2010’.He also has a Facebook page: best Bermuda coffee.“I’m just interested in an honest cup of Joe,” said Mr Melvin over a leisurely cup of Illy coffee at one of his favourite hangouts, Lemon Tree.He’s fairly confident there are other people out there who are also passionate about coffee.“I catch the ferry in and every other person on the ferry has a cup of coffee in their hand. I don’t know if you noticed how many new coffee shops there are in Bermuda.There are somewhere between 34 and 35 places to get a cup of coffee in Bermuda. If you add in the garages and roach coaches there are probably a couple hundred places.”The Facebook page and the book are meant to be a guide to the best places in Bermuda to get a cup of coffee.They offer trivia about coffee. For example, today’s style of coffee was first made hundreds of years ago in Saudi Arabia. The guide also contains pictures of coffee shops in interesting places in the world. For example, in Melbourne, Australia you can get a coffee and a car wash. In another place you can get coffee and your hair cut. There’s a picture of a coffee shack in the Alaskan outback, and also a picture of one of Europe’s oldest coffee shops in Zurich, Switzerland. It was built in the 1600s.“Drinking coffee for me became more than an idle hobby when I noticed an internet website where you could publish your own books,” said Mr Melvin. “I had an unscratched desire to be a writer. I published through Blurb.com .”When it comes to where to get a coffee, Mr Melvin is the man to ask. For example, his favourite speciality coffee place is Rock Island Coffee on Reid Street.“They are the only people who bring in their own beans and grind their own beans,” he said. “You have to give them great credit for doing that. Unfortunately, what you find in Bermuda is that everything is pretty similar however the quality of the coffee differs so much from place to place. [It’s] curious since we all have the same milk, water and pretty much the same coffee and only three or four different types of machines. It comes down to who makes it and how you treat the milk and things like that.”Humidity is the enemy of a good cup of coffee, he said. It stops the milk in coffee from frothing properly.“The secret to making a great cup of coffee is you have to care, and you also have to practise,” he said. “Like anything else, the more you do it, the better you get.”Mr Melvin admitted that he had to drink a lot of coffee to research the book. The writing life gave him a real buzz.“Now that I am finished writing, I am down to one or two cups a day,” he said. “I have my own coffee machine at home, of course. I don’t drink decaf. What is the point? You drink it for the buzz. The strongest coffee you can probably get here would probably be out of the Spot Restaurant on Burnaby Street. It is always hot and strong there. First thing in the morning when you drink it you always get a little pep.”At home, he has a cupboard full of different coffee varieties he has bought locally, and brought home from travels abroad.“I would say I am a bit of a coffee addict, yes,” he said with a laugh. “My wife Vivien is not a coffee addict, but she’s happy if I make her a cup.”Ask about Mr Melvin’s book in local bookstores.