Coffee is surely one of the great blessings - or consolations, according to point of view - of life. It smells good, it tastes good - and, by golly, it does you good. Not so long ago coffee used to get a decidedly negative press, but nowadays the good news just keeps on coming - here's the latest. And note, these findings show that it's not all about caffeine, it's about coffee; other caffeine sources did not yield similar results. It was always a mistake to equate coffee with caffeine - coffee is no more caffeine than wine is alcohol. Drinking a cup of good coffee is nothing like taking caffeine; still less is drinking a glass of decent wine anything like knocking back a slug of alcohol. Coffee and wine are fantastically complex substances with very deep roots in human culture and husbandry, and their effects border on the magical. The same goes for tea and whisky, and quite possibly tobacco (though the bad news there rather outweighs the good).
I knew coffee was the drink for me when I first smelt the real thing - is there anything to touch the smell of freshly ground coffee? My father used to make filter coffee from time to time, even grinding the beans himself - pretty damned exotic in those days - but alas, most of the time, like most of my generation, I was obliged to drink the instant version, usually as a 'milky drink' (ugh). In my late teens I discovered the heady delight of espresso and never looked back... I also knew that beer was the drink for me when I first smelt the hoppy head on my father's Double Diamond - but that is another story.
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The Finnish suicide study is interesting, as it appeared to establish a tipping point at which coffee ceased to discourage suicide and began to encourage it. This was at around 12 cups a day.
ReplyDeleteThe strangest thing happened to me after a bout of major surgery a couple of years ago: I went in loving tea and disliking coffee and came out unable to drink tea and enjoying coffee. Whilst I'm now back on the tea I can't start the day without a large homemade espresso topped up with microwave boiled milk and two very brown sugars (a sort of latte, I suppose). For what it's worth, I then move on to Earl Grey tea until lunchtime then green tea with mint or lime until bedtime. Not that I'm slightly obsessed by of it all, of course.
ReplyDeleteI know a chap Gareth...he's not really a doctor, more a pitchman, a mountebank....he has no certificates on the wall, and will accept no payment....but he is very good at getting to the heart of obsessive, ritualistic behaviour such as you have described.
ReplyDeleteTake no notice of him Gaw - that sounds perfectly reasonable, apart form inflicting all that milk and sugar on a harmless espresso...
ReplyDelete'For what it's worth', I need tea to start the day, then switch straight away to coffee - a small espresso and a black to get through the morning, then another black after lunch, then some kind of milkless tea in the afternoon, and after that it's usually booze all the way..
Pardon me Nige but, as they say in Milan 'kind words do not butter a parsnip'. Gareth's comment is an obvious cry for help, even without reading between the lines - and your own exigencies ('a black to get through the morning, then another black after lunch')have taken on a worrying tone this morning.
ReplyDeleteMy wife says I worry too much. I'm worried that my reading of the word verification below will be wrong.
Perhaps all three of us could visit my friend, and make a day of it?
Nice idea Mahlerman, but I'm worried they might not have enough coffee...
ReplyDeleteYes, forgot to mention that, not unlike Nige, I unwind from all the stresses involved in organising my daily hot drink schedule with a couple of glasses in the evening, usually of red. So worry not Mm.
ReplyDeleteI am in complete agreement, Nige. It's good to see the delights of coffee properly celebrated.
ReplyDeleteI have a small collection of the Italian coffee makers that uses pressurised steam: different volumes for different moods. They add an enjoyable ritual to the pleasure.
This cannot really work, I feel so.
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