Coffee: King of Beverages

There are dog people, and cat people; there are gin people and vodka people; then there are tea people and there are coffee people. I am coffee people.

My mother was a tea person; when I was old enough to want a hot drink, she offered me what she drank; tea with two sugars. I didn’t really take to it, but when I transitioned to coffee, I took the two sugars with me as a default. And then took months to wean myself off it. But still, I never fell in love with tea.

At that time, in my late teens, I was drinking instant coffee, as I knew no better. It filled a need to socialise and have a warm drink, but I did not love it. You just can’t love instant coffee, but I still preferred it to tea.

Then I went university and met people who had grown up with parents who drank ‘proper’ coffee and had basic filter makers, and my love for true coffee, properly made, began. I also got a filter, but then I experimented with a Cona system. Part of the attraction of this was watching the process as if it was in the physics lab. But it takes a long time, and during the process the combined equipment becomes very top heavy – I think I went through two or three of them before finally giving up.

The next step was the cafetière. Quick and easy, made in the same device as you serve from, which can also be insulated if you prefer. At that point I went from buying ground beans to whole beans, in search of freshness. This – of course - meant acquiring a grinder. I started with a small hand device that I found in an antique shop, but although it was pretty, it took a long time and the grind was somewhat uneven, to say the least. So, I then bought a purpose made electric grinder, but that was a bit hit and miss. For a cafetière, you need a medium grind – not too fine – and with an electric grinder, if you lose a bit of concentration and go too far, you end up with coffee much too finely ground – suitable only for espresso machines.

Eventually, then, that was the way I had to go. I started with a cheap Turkish-style moka pot which makes good and strong coffee, but is fiddly and – if you don’t tighten it properly – somewhat messy.

It was about this time that I went on the Atkins Diet. The first two weeks of the Atkins Diet are for detoxification, from things like tea, soda - and coffee. This was the first time I had ever tried to go for a day without coffee, and so I had never experienced caffeine withdrawal. It was awful! Shivers and headaches that no pharmaceutical that I had at my disposal would help with. But, what the hell, it was only temporary, wasn’t it?

Well, the withdrawal was only temporary, but the effects of that detox remain to this day. Until then I used to be able to drink coffee all day and all evening, with no effect on my ability to get to sleep at night. That was all ruined by the Atkins detox process; after the two weeks I went back to proper coffee – but then found that if I drank it after lunchtime, I could not get to sleep at all that night. So, now I cannot drink coffee all day like I used to – which is a tragedy. I still manage 6-8 shots up until about 1pm or so though.

After the moka pot I then graduated to a classic Gaggia espresso machine with a manually operated handle which was usable but – again - fiddly and unstable, and was fairly quickly replaced by a button operated Gaggia Synchrony. This was good, and lasted for many years – it slowed down my quest for better hardware, and let me concentrate on the source ingredient – coffee beans.

In Ithaca I currently have a liking for Don Pablo Signature Blend which has the advantage of being on the Amazon re-order list, so it just arrives regularly. It is a blend of 100% Arabica beans from Colombia, Guatemala, and Brazil which “’have distinct body characters making the coffee more complex in the cup than a single origin varietal. The taste is sweet and well-integrated and the body medium to full. The finish is cocoa-toned and very smooth with low acidity. The slight caramelization of the natural sugars in the bean give this Medium-Dark coffee a touch of roastiness, while it still retains its natural flavour character, giving it a sweet, pleasant aftertaste”. That’s a fair description.

In Oxford I have a Pact account that one of my daughter’s subscribed me to a few years ago as a Christmas present. The deliver a different coffee every 2-3 weeks which means you get to try out a bunch of different stuff; my favourite from them is the Fruit and Nut Espresso, another Arabica blend of Brazilian and Columbian beans – a medium/dark roast.

I like to set my machines to a fairly fine grind, so a medium or medium/dark roast is good for me. I tend to find that a dark roast in such circumstances will result in an espresso that goes just over the edge into overly acidic and bitter.

So, what do I put these beans in nowadays?

About four years ago I threw my hands up, spent the money, and went ‘beans to cup’. I have never regretted it. ‘Beans to cup’ (BTC) means that you have a machine that you fill with water and beans – then you simply have to turn it on and wait for it to warm up, and just press one button, and the machine will then grind the requisite quantity of beans, feed the ground beans into the chamber, heat the water and force it under pressure into the chamber with the beans, leave to stand to irrigate for a few seconds to make sure all the flavour is obtained from the beans, and then force out the coffee out into your cup.

My first BTC was a Jura ENA5 which gave sterling service for a few years until an apparent leak developed from a joint inside secured by a small rubber grommet that appeared to fall out. It annoyed me, and I was missing my coffee, so – rather that doing anything logical – I ordered a rival BTC from DeLonghi, a Magnifico. The ailing Jura ENA5 was given to my daughter and her boyfriend as he thought he could fix it. As it happened, when they got it home and plugged it in, it did not leak, and hasn’t leaked ever since! Very annoying.

The Magnifico is a nice machine, but not ‘magnificent’, and not as good as the Jura. It still provides us with coffee in the house I stay in in Oxford, and as it is regularly cleaned and descaled, it looks like it will go on for years.

Then we bought the house in Ithaca, and I go there a lot, so obviously something was needed for the house in the woods. I regretted losing my old Jura so I went on to Amazon to see what bargains were available. Luckily, there was a reconditioned guaranteed Jura ENA9 for about half price – did I mention that these are expensive machines? The ENA9 is now around $1,600.

I can’t recommend the Jura ENA9 highly enough. Perfect espresso - that’s the only way I drink coffee as far as I’m concerned - not be adulterated with milk, or any other ingredient.

But others don’t feel that way, so the ENA9 also has a built in ‘frother’ that simply needs to be pointed at a milk container via a plastic tube and will then automatically make a cappuccino or something it calls a ‘latte macchiato’.

This has proven popular with milky coffee drinkers in our house, and - when made in a glass cup - is a delight to watch being made.

The ENA9 will first heat and froth up milk and put it in the cup with dense milk at the bottom and more light frothy milk on top, and then insert the espresso such that it magically rests between the two layers of milk - pretty.

I have one more coffee making device - for the car. This is the ingenious Handpresso Auto 12v – a small but sexy black cylinder that uses ground coffee in filter packs to make espressos in your car. You insert a coffee pack, fill it with water, and then plug it into your cigarette lighter while it heats up the water. Then you turn it upside down, press the release button, and it leases an espresso into your cup. It takes about three minutes altogether, and with it you can enjoy a delicious fresh espresso in remote locations miles from the nearest coffee shop. If you’re interested to see how it works – here is the video…

Talking about coffee shops.

There are many stories about the discovery of coffee, most of which have no real provenance. What we do know is that is grew originally in and around Ethiopia, and that at some point mankind discovered its stimulating and restorative properties when properly prepared. It was in Arabia in the 15th and 16th Centuries that it started to become a popular drink. It spread throughout the whole Arabian world and thence to Italy, the first European coffee house opening in Rome in 1645. One of the first coffee houses in the UK was Oxford's Queen's Lane Coffee House, established in 1654, which – astonishingly - is still in existence today.

Thereafter, coffee houses multiplied rapidly in England – especially in London – and became very popular. For almost 100 years, coffee was the hot beverage of choice in England, and, unlike the English family’s tea of the last 200 years, it was not consumed at the breakfast table or indeed at any other time or place in the home. Instead, from about the mid-1600s through the mid-1700s, men (and just about all pictures from the period show only men in coffeehouses) drank their coffee in London’s coffeehouses while they transacted business, discussed politics, and shared literary works in progress. By 1700, there were probably over 2000 coffeehouses in London or one for every 300 inhabitants.

The diary of Samuel Pepys (1633-1701), testifies to the importance of its coffeehouses. Even though London’s first coffeehouse did not open until 1652, less than 10 years later, coffeehouses had become the favoured social venue for Pepys and other members of the Restoration elite. Indeed, in just the second week of his diary entries (which began in January 1660), Pepys reports meeting friends and discussing politics in coffee houses. Coffee houses, along with the theatre, quickly became an integral part of Restoration London’s social scene.

An important official in the bureaucracy of the Royal Navy Pepys met frequently at coffee houses to review the Navy’s finances and draw up contracts. He also visited coffee houses to enjoy the company of other movers and shakers (including the poet John Dryden and the composer Henry Purcell [father of the more famous Purcell]) and to discuss topics ranging from the war with the Dutch Republic to James Harrington’s political theory to the reproductive systems of insects. On one occasion, he left a coffee house after a long discussion of the booming Restoration economy only to return shortly thereafter with a friend, “and there drunk more till I was almost sick” (23 January 1663).

In the late 1600s, a coffee house owned by one Edward Lloyd became a meeting place for merchants, ship owners, ship captains, insurance brokers, and others involved in overseas trade. Because so many of his customers came to hear the latest business news, Mr. Lloyd began publishing the news in his own periodical. Soon he was making more from his newsletter than from his coffee. Insurance brokers found his services so useful that they began meeting their clients at his coffee house, and soon they were renting booths in his shop. Even after Edward Lloyd’s death in 1713, insurance brokers continued to meet at the coffee house. By 1774, Lloyd’s had become a corporation owned by brokers and underwriters and had moved its quarters to the Royal Exchange.

By then tea had begun to supplant coffee. During the 18th century, coffee consumption declined in England, giving way to tea-drinking. Tea is was simpler to make, especially at home, and had become cheaper with the British conquest of India and the tea industry there – it also appealed to ladies, who could drink it a home without having to venture into the city.

Coffee and tea slugged it out for another couple of hundred years, until something happened in the mid 1990s that caused a new generation of coffee shops to appear, starting in the US. Maybe it was the need or students to have stimulants for all night study sessions; maybe it was the emergence of wi-fi that meant – for the price of cup of Joe - you could take your laptop in for hours and still work; maybe it was that people could no longer put up with execrable US diner filter coffee. I remember the first time I went to the United States, in 1980, being so disappointed with my first authentic American diner coffee experience – dishwater.

I don’t know what it was, and I can still scarcely believe it, but Starbucks must have done something right as they seem to have given this process an enormous game-changing impulse. In 1994, when Starbucks opened its first drive-through, the company ran 425 stores across the US. By 2000, it had 3,501 stores open across the globe; by 2005, it had 10,241, now it is some 30,000.

Whatever it was that they did that was right, it certainly wasn’t making coffee – of that I am absolutely certain, as their coffee is worse than diner coffee. They pick (for me) poor beans, then over-roast them and their espresso is consequently nasty and bitter. Note that 90% of ‘coffee’ drinkers would even know that, because they drink their coffee with 4-10 times the amount of some creamy or creamy substitute milk product (and sometimes sugar) that totally swamps the taste of the coffee anyway. I blame them. I have walked six blocks to get a coffee from an outlet other than Starbucks, and I have gone without coffee for days rather than drink it. It is that awful.

In the UK Costa coffee is miles better for espresso, so is almost any other non-chain coffee shop.

And yet, and yet – Starbucks still thrives. I don’t get it. Their ubiquity caused Robin Williams to say, some 20 years ago, "a bomb went off in downtown Manhattan this morning, no-one was hurt, but eleven Starbuck’s were destroyed”.

But what does coffee do to you?

As we all know, it is a stimulant par excellence. It makes you feel awake and, to me, it tastes great. Apart from that it seems to be remarkably benign, despite being attacked regularly on health grounds for decades. Here is the latest from Wikipedia:

In 2012, the US National Institutes of Health–AARP Diet and Health Study analysed the relationship between coffee drinking and mortality. They found that higher coffee consumption was associated with lower risk of death, and that those who drank any coffee lived longer than those who did not. However, the authors noted, "whether this was a causal or associational finding cannot be determined from our data.”

A 2014 meta-analysis found that coffee consumption (4 cups/day) was inversely associated with all-cause mortality (a 16% lower risk), as well as cardiovascular disease mortality specifically (a 21% lower risk from drinking 3 cups/day), but not with cancer mortality. Additional meta-analyses corroborated these findings, showing that higher coffee consumption (2–4 cups per day) was associated with a reduced risk of death by all disease causes. An association of coffee drinking with reduced risk for death from various sources was confirmed by a widely cited prospective cohort study of ten European countries in 2017.

So, drink up...