Coffee

Todays sermon is about coffee.

About this time last year, or maybe a little earlier I suddenly found myself with time on my hands due to having less time on my feet, more specifically my left foot which was temporarily detached from my leg due to an accident with a trailer which is well documented elsewhere. Whilst we all dream of having extended periods of time away from work the actually reality of that time off is somewhat depressing, particularly if one is confined pretty much to the house as I was. After you have arranged all your books and CD’s into alphabetical order, completed your imaginary ideal 10 car garage, then your imaginary 100 car garage, completed the jigsaw and made a wonky model of a Hawker Hurricane that genuinely does look like it was shot down, although by the USS Enterprise rather than a Messerschmitt, time does start to weigh heavily upon your day. Daytime TV is no help. Initially you enjoy the repeats of old Top Gear episodes on DAVE, until you realise that they are repeating the repeats that you watched only yesterday. Heartbeat and All Creatures Great and Small filled the nostalgia slot for an hour or so, but then to my horror I found myself looking forward to Jeremy Kyles show. Enough! So I broke out the box sets of Breaking Bad, Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes and when I ran out of them I even watched Flambards.

And then boredom set in. Normally I would take a bath at this point, a long hot relaxing bath with a glass of red wine, a good book and good music on the background. This, with frequent top ups of both wine and hot water could easily while away an afternoon. Sadly with my wayward foot held in place with a cast a bath of his nature was completely out of the question, an unsatisfactory flannel wash and half a shower* was all I was allowed.

*yes, half a shower, with the plaster encased limb prohibited from entry into the cubicle to prevent it getting wet.

It is at this stage that an Englishman would mull things over with a cup of tea. Arthur Dent intergalactic time and space traveller has a lot to say about tea. He famously threw his plastic synthesised cup of tea at the Nutrimat Machine that had provided it saying “Take it back, it tastes filthy.” Having an inbuilt mechanism that rejects tea, i.e. it makes me vomit, I can empathise with this. Arthur Dent, however, liked tea. He enthused about tea. He could write a sermon about tea, and could also make sandwiches although he didn’t know this at the time.

I perhaps digress slightly on the tea thing, because what I did was have a cup of coffee. As I drank it, I realised how entirely and totally unsatisfactory it was. To misquote Arthur, it tasted almost, but not quite entirely unlike coffee.

There are two types of coffee. Well actually there are many types, more of which I will go into later, but two common methods of preparation; instant and not quite so instant.

Instant coffee can come in granules or powder and varies in quality from the very finest like Dowe and Egberts, and Kenco, through the middle ground Nescafe and Maxwell House, through supermarket own brands, and down literally into the gutter, where they sweep up the dust and spilt grounds from the premium brands and sell it as the “Smart Value” range. All have the same thing in common. They are like having sex with a girl from the local council housing estate – cheap, quick, tasteless and ultimately unsatisfying, no matter how sweet it may seem at the time. With very little preparation you can even do it behind the bike sheds – make the coffee that is.

With time on my hands I decided to have some proper not instant coffee. This was my road to Damascus moment. Well, it was the road down to the local COOP actually, a journey which took many minutes, and much hardship and on which I faced much peril, particularly when a car nearly hit my wheelchair on the Zebra crossing. The journey was worth it though, because there, on the shelf just above the level I could comfortable stretch to was a row of Taylors of Harrogate coffee, ready ground and beans in a variety of strengths and flavours. Being a morning I chose a strength 3 morning coffee, ready ground and a cafeteria in which to make it.

Back home my epic journey into coffee began. I decided from the outset that quality mattered over quantity. So where I had been drinking seriously silly volumes of instant each day I would limit myself to just one or two cups of real coffee a day. Perhaps three, maybe four as a treat. You get the picture. I didn’t want to get addicted to Columbian powders, that’s the main thing.

It occurred to me that experts at law are called Barristers. Experts at coffee are called Baristas. Coincidence? I don’t think so. Lesser qualified legal people are called solicitors, and people who solicit are prostitutes, so logically people who make cheap inferior instant coffee are hookers, right? It brings back that sex thing again. Making good coffee is like making love to a beautiful woman. You have to take your time, and make sure the whole thing is a beautiful experience.

So, I start by putting the right music on. It is possible to make coffee to Rock and Roll, but only if you are also flipping burgers. Classical is the way to go – Vivaldi, Holst, Elgar, Glen Miller, the theme from the Deer Hunter or anything by a brass band is could, although not Terry Wogans Floral Dance. Next take a coffee grinder and fill it with beans. Oh yes, I went from ready ground coffee right back to beans, because they are better, fresher and make the experience much more involving. You see it’s not just the drinking of the coffee, it’s the whole experience, you have to involve yourself in the making it.

Savour the flavour, the smell and the look of the beans. Inhale deeply. What joy. Try that with Nescafe and all you get is brown powder up your nose.

Now to the grinder. The grinder must be mechanical, use an electric grinder and you detach yourself from the experience. Now grind those beans, not manically like a dervish, but gently, smoothly, almost caressing the grinder to split and grind those beans. Once you have sufficient grounds pour them into the cafeteria and pour on boiled, but not boiling water. Leave them to infuse with the plunger just settled on top, touching but not compressing the still. Now you need to pick a mug, not a cup.

Just so there is no confusion here a mug is not a mug unless you can get at least three of your finger through the handle. Nobody of any worth ever drank coffee from a cup. Cups are for tea drinkers, mugs are for coffee – end of argument. The American idea of “bottomless” cups of coffee with free refills is just silly. Use a mug in the first place. Have two mugfuls if you like. Just don’t use a cup.

Sweetness of your coffee is purely to your taste. You may add sugar, but it must be brown Demerara sugar, not white. White is purified, and bleached, brown is natural, earthy and wholesome and sometimes has little bits of grit in it, which is fine. It’s like Real Ale tastes better when it has bits floating in it. The sugar goes in the mug first before you add coffee, never the other way about.

Milk or cream is a difficult one. Why would you want to add something squirted out of a cow into something that is pure and perfect? Real coffee is black. But if you do want to add milk or cream it is added to the coffee in the mug, not put in first.

Now comes the moment to savour, the plunging of the coffee. Don’t rush it. Many make the mistake of pushing the plunger all the way down straight away in their rush to get to the finish. Instead, take your time, plunge gently and slowly about a third of the depth, at a snails pace. Watch the grinds swirl and mingle as the steep darkens to an inky blackness. Then pull the plunger back up and immediately return to two thirds of the depth, pause, bring the plunger fully back up and then finally, with satisfaction, push the plunger fully home. Think not of a 1950’s steam engine as you do this, but more of a freight elevator in a 1960’s NHS hospital – slow, but smooth, no rush, dependable. Raise the plunger just a fraction, maybe half an inch to let the grinds breathe and leave to stand for a minute or two before pouring. Coffee perfection.

This brings us to the issue of coffee bars. Not coffee bars as in confectionary bought from Thorntons, which are actually cappuccino, but coffee bars as in the likes of Café Nero and Costa Coffee. As I have said, part of the whole coffee experience is the making of it. In fact it is entirely possible to enjoy a cup of coffee without even drinking it. So why you would want to miss out and have someone else make the coffee for you? Another problem in these vast commercial coffee houses is that they simply cannot make a simple mug of coffee. There are many problems to be honest. Some want to serve your coffee in a take out paper cup, which just doesn’t work. Coffee only tastes right in a proper mug. Put it in a plastic or paper mug and what you get is plastic or paper flavoured coffee. The next problem is Health and Safety, which for some reason, the irony of which is not lost on me, they must serve the coffee at temperatures akin to those in the core of Jupiter. This prevents bacterial growth which might give you a mild tummy bug, at the cost of the risk of third degree burns should you accidentally spill a drop, or take a sip of it at any time within the next 24 hours.

The next problem arises from the increasing multiculturalism in modern society. In the 16^th century when the British East India Company brought coffee to Britain we drank it straight and black. No messing. Gradually we added a little sugar and to make it more palatable for southerners milk or cream but basically that was it for four hundred years.

Now however our coffee shops have a bewildering menu of Espresso, Cappuccino, Moka, Mocha, Frapacinno, Ristretto, Guillermo, Café Crema, Cubano, Americano, Antocinno, Cortado, Galao, Macchiato, and Vienna. None of which mean anything to me, as I just want a straight mug of Joe. Given that most of these end in “o” I blame the Italians. Italian life is all about style, and making something look better than it is, rather like a Lambretta. A Lambretta is a machine of beauty, it promises style and speed and a good time right up until you open up the throttle and strip away the glamour, and only then do you realise that underneath its pretty skirts it has a wooden leg and is wearing clogs. The FIAT spider is the same thing, a stylish sports car, open topped, wonderful to look at, but lacking substance and it melts in the first shower of rain. Italians it seems could polish a turd and make it beautiful. All these variations of coffee are the same, just coffee with something added and a shiny name bolted on. Even the French are at it, with their exotic romantic sounding Café au Lait, which sounds wonderful until you translate into English; Coffee with milk. But give something an exotic name and we, the public are fooled into paying extortionate prices for it. This is why I shun Costa Coffee and look for the small independents which also sell bacon and mushroom sandwiches and usually have trucks parked outside. Provided they aren’t making instant their brews are usually far better than any chain and the drinks menu is simpler; Tea or coffee.

Finally, as a general rule coffee should have nothing added to it, except maybe a tot of brandy, rum or whiskey at Christmas, when it will be acceptable to add some proper cream to it as well, but not the stuff squirted out of a can. A sprinkling of Cinnamon is then also acceptable.

My coffee sermon is prompted by an email I received today advertising a new Wi-Fi enabled coffee making machine. This is simply the work of the devil himself. To take something as pure as the coffee making process and reduce it to pressing a button on an App on your phone is pure evil. It may save time, but it takes the pleasure out of the process.

Coffee making and drinking is not just a way of passing the time away. It is a way of toning up, invigorating, chilling out, de-stressing, taking time to contemplate, reboot, relax and renew ones soul. Nothing else should get in the way.

To quote Forest Gump, that’s about all I have to say about that.

Cheers.