good to the last drop
Idly drifting while the coffee is dripping: I muse on the fashions in coffee-making that have percolated, so to speak, through my life.
For the last 20-odd years, I've used the Melitta method -- a ceramic or plastic coffee filtering cone, a paper filter, finely ground coffee. There are slight variations. When I'm feeling flush, I buy the coffee at Second Cup. When I'm not, I grind it myself at the supermarket. When there are others around, I make a whole pot. On my own, a tiny paper cone and three little scoops of coffee over a mug half filled with warm milk for an ersatz latte.
That's the other thing -- mostly, now, I drink decaf, except in the morning when it's high test all the way.
My first cups of coffee, however, were, in fact, percolated. I don't think decaffeinated existed, except for something called Sanka. Every morning, my father would make 12 cups -- little cups, not the massive mugs we use now -- of coffee in a white Corning Cornflower percolator that heated on the gas stove. I was addicted to coffee by the time I was 11. I don't think we'd let 11-year-olds drink coffee now, although we'll happily let their schools line the halls with soft drink machines filled not only with caffeine but sugar.
Percolators in my childhood home led to (contraband) electric hot water coils and instant coffee -- deplorable -- in the college dorm, followed by a brief flirtation, in early married life, with my friend Kathy's Sudbury-style Finnish coffee. We were so poor, we didn't have the proverbial pot to you-know-what-in, let alone one to make coffee in. So, in the Kathy-method, you just boil up a pot of water and throw in a handful of coarsely ground coffee. Turn it off, put the lid on and let it settle. Then you drink it, in my case, with a Tums.
Later, my friend Irene -- long gone and still sadly missed, as they say in those anniversary obituary notices -- introduced me to Melitta. I never looked back.
Irene also introduced me to the notion that one could buy cream and keep it at home. Daft, I know, but I'd always had whole milk in my coffee as a child and it never occurred to me that cream for coffee was anything but a restaurant treat. Now, of course, I have forsaken cream and switched back to milk. But not ordinary whole milk. No, it has to be lactose-free 2 per cent milk. Have you ever seen the counter at a coffee shop where people add their own milk and sugar? Cream, half and half, whole milk, 2 per cent, 1 per cent, skim and lactose free skim and 2 per cent. How precious, exactly, have we become? Not to mention white sugar, brown sugar and pretend sugar for those who like it sweet.
Even so, I expect it's a good thing that smoke-free coffee shops multiply while neighbourhood bars languish.
I still have that little water heating coil and I never go anywhere without it. A tiny plastic cone, a handful of filters and a baggie of freshly-ground coffee travel with a book, my toothbrush and Mp3 player. Armed with something to read, music, coffee and a way to avoid offending with coffee-breath, I am ready for anything.
For the last 20-odd years, I've used the Melitta method -- a ceramic or plastic coffee filtering cone, a paper filter, finely ground coffee. There are slight variations. When I'm feeling flush, I buy the coffee at Second Cup. When I'm not, I grind it myself at the supermarket. When there are others around, I make a whole pot. On my own, a tiny paper cone and three little scoops of coffee over a mug half filled with warm milk for an ersatz latte.
That's the other thing -- mostly, now, I drink decaf, except in the morning when it's high test all the way.
My first cups of coffee, however, were, in fact, percolated. I don't think decaffeinated existed, except for something called Sanka. Every morning, my father would make 12 cups -- little cups, not the massive mugs we use now -- of coffee in a white Corning Cornflower percolator that heated on the gas stove. I was addicted to coffee by the time I was 11. I don't think we'd let 11-year-olds drink coffee now, although we'll happily let their schools line the halls with soft drink machines filled not only with caffeine but sugar.
Percolators in my childhood home led to (contraband) electric hot water coils and instant coffee -- deplorable -- in the college dorm, followed by a brief flirtation, in early married life, with my friend Kathy's Sudbury-style Finnish coffee. We were so poor, we didn't have the proverbial pot to you-know-what-in, let alone one to make coffee in. So, in the Kathy-method, you just boil up a pot of water and throw in a handful of coarsely ground coffee. Turn it off, put the lid on and let it settle. Then you drink it, in my case, with a Tums.
Later, my friend Irene -- long gone and still sadly missed, as they say in those anniversary obituary notices -- introduced me to Melitta. I never looked back.
Irene also introduced me to the notion that one could buy cream and keep it at home. Daft, I know, but I'd always had whole milk in my coffee as a child and it never occurred to me that cream for coffee was anything but a restaurant treat. Now, of course, I have forsaken cream and switched back to milk. But not ordinary whole milk. No, it has to be lactose-free 2 per cent milk. Have you ever seen the counter at a coffee shop where people add their own milk and sugar? Cream, half and half, whole milk, 2 per cent, 1 per cent, skim and lactose free skim and 2 per cent. How precious, exactly, have we become? Not to mention white sugar, brown sugar and pretend sugar for those who like it sweet.
Even so, I expect it's a good thing that smoke-free coffee shops multiply while neighbourhood bars languish.
I still have that little water heating coil and I never go anywhere without it. A tiny plastic cone, a handful of filters and a baggie of freshly-ground coffee travel with a book, my toothbrush and Mp3 player. Armed with something to read, music, coffee and a way to avoid offending with coffee-breath, I am ready for anything.
posted by Sharon Airhart at 7:20 am
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