My favourite coffee description is from Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow - Peter Hoeg: First he grinds a lot of light-coloured beans and then some which are tiny, almost black, and shiny as glass. He mixes them in a little metal funnel which he attaches to an espresso machine, which he places on a gas hob. People acquire bad coffee habits in Greenland. I pour hot milk right on to the Nescafé. I’m not above dissolving the powder in water straight from the hot-water tap. He pours one-part whipping cream and two-parts whole milk into two tall glasses with handles. When he draws out the coffee from the machine, it’s thick and black like crude oil. Then he froths the milk with the steam nozzle and divides the coffee between the two glasses. We take it to the sofa. I do appreciate it when someone serves me something good. In the tall glasses the drink is dark as an old oak tree and has an overwhelming, almost perfumed tropical scent. “I was following you,” he says. The glass is scorching hot. The coffee is scalding.
I keep coming back to this. It feels like that edit of Anime foods that goes viral every once in a while across the internet. And I love coffee so much.
I think I like the excerpt from Saad Abdullah Sowayan, Nabati Poetry: The Oral Poetry of Arabia, 1985 best!
It's so easy to get coffee now at every corner, but the best coffee is truly one you've made in the way you like best from good coffee (I love the Turkish/Greek coffee method, especially the Turkish/Arabic one with addition of cardamom!) If it's an espresso it also does need some sugar. Had not heard of the Kierkegaard sugar mountain coffee before! Thanks, great post!
I have a bit of a tricky relationship with coffee - I like it a lot (when made well), strong (continental European taste buds) and hot (though very amazed at the 16th century advert suggesting you can't burn your mouth on coffee regardless how hot it is....) but can't have too much (migraines!) Also, working in the NHS means coffee of poor quality at work, especially if you work in hospitals..... the dreaded instant coffee. (And unfortunately you do start to drink - at least during night shifts! Glad not doing those these days!)
Lovely! Thank you so much.
My favourite coffee description is from Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow - Peter Hoeg: First he grinds a lot of light-coloured beans and then some which are tiny, almost black, and shiny as glass. He mixes them in a little metal funnel which he attaches to an espresso machine, which he places on a gas hob. People acquire bad coffee habits in Greenland. I pour hot milk right on to the Nescafé. I’m not above dissolving the powder in water straight from the hot-water tap. He pours one-part whipping cream and two-parts whole milk into two tall glasses with handles. When he draws out the coffee from the machine, it’s thick and black like crude oil. Then he froths the milk with the steam nozzle and divides the coffee between the two glasses. We take it to the sofa. I do appreciate it when someone serves me something good. In the tall glasses the drink is dark as an old oak tree and has an overwhelming, almost perfumed tropical scent. “I was following you,” he says. The glass is scorching hot. The coffee is scalding.
Thick and black like crude oil 😍
I keep coming back to this. It feels like that edit of Anime foods that goes viral every once in a while across the internet. And I love coffee so much.
Excellent compilation!!
I didn't realize that valley talk of the 80s had an ancestor in Gertrude Stein
Made me chuckle 😂
I think I like the excerpt from Saad Abdullah Sowayan, Nabati Poetry: The Oral Poetry of Arabia, 1985 best!
It's so easy to get coffee now at every corner, but the best coffee is truly one you've made in the way you like best from good coffee (I love the Turkish/Greek coffee method, especially the Turkish/Arabic one with addition of cardamom!) If it's an espresso it also does need some sugar. Had not heard of the Kierkegaard sugar mountain coffee before! Thanks, great post!
I have a bit of a tricky relationship with coffee - I like it a lot (when made well), strong (continental European taste buds) and hot (though very amazed at the 16th century advert suggesting you can't burn your mouth on coffee regardless how hot it is....) but can't have too much (migraines!) Also, working in the NHS means coffee of poor quality at work, especially if you work in hospitals..... the dreaded instant coffee. (And unfortunately you do start to drink - at least during night shifts! Glad not doing those these days!)
Mine too! I've a far less elaborate system at home, but I've been making my coffees more mindfully ever since I stumbled across that passage