Blue Jean Chef

As is the way with many things in life, I go through food phases. I find something I like and then I can’t get enough of it. I indulge in the beloved food item for a little while until my devotion and obsession gently fade away, and I’m left wondering why I was [...]

As is the way with many things in life, I go through food phases. I find something I like and then I can’t get enough of it. I indulge in the beloved food item for a little while until my devotion and obsession gently fade away, and I’m left wondering why I was so enamored in the first place. I’ve been through the risotto phase, the Cambozola cheese phase, the sun-dried tomato phase, the Luna Bar phase, the Orangina phase, and I know there are more phases to come in my future.

Some foods, however, are above being categorized as a phase. They outshine phase foods, spanning the years of my life and refusing to fade away. I will always love artisan bread, and delight in its many forms; chocolate will always be my true food love; and for as long as there are mornings in my life, there will be coffee.

They say that coffee is an adult beverage. I agree – not because I believe all the stories about coffee stunting the growth of children (I’m really not sure about the truth in that at all!), but because I do believe that coffee appeals to the taste buds of adults more than to those of children. The bitterness and acidity of coffee requires an acquired taste – an adult taste.

Even amongst adult coffee drinkers, however, there is a huge disparity about what makes a good cup of coffee: some like their coffee strong, while others prefer a weaker brew, or what I like to call “hint o’ coffee”. Others still, those who enjoy lattes more than anything else, probably truly prefer milk over coffee. There’s nothing wrong with liking your coffee in any of these forms. What I cannot comprehend are those people who don’t have a preference at all, those who can get a cup of coffee just anywhere and be satisfied with it. I suppose their life is much easier than mine.

I just can’t enjoy a bad or weak cup of coffee. I would rather go without, truly. Even if it was morning and my body was waiting for its daily dose, I would abstain from a bad cup of coffee and drink nothing at all. That makes my life a little more difficult than the non-discriminating coffee drinker. They can stop in at any coffee shop, coffee stand, even coffee machine (gasp!) and get a cup o’ joe. Me? No, I have to plan ahead. I have to make my coffee at home or get to a coffee shop that I know will make me my strong cup of java. When going on vacation, I have to take what I need in order to make my morning potion.

This is actually good news, for it shows that I am not a coffee drinker for the caffeine, but for the taste (no, really – shaking as I type this!). I truly enjoy the taste of a good cup of coffee. It is the ritualistic start to my day, break in the afternoon and finish to a good meal at night.

The taste of coffee, much like that of wine, depends on the origin of the coffee beans as well as the roast of the beans. It has taken me a few years to figure out and define my coffee taste. Now that I know that my perfect cup of coffee uses beans from the Pacific or Indonesia that have a dark roast, and is brewed with a healthy amount of coffee per cup of water, it is very easy for me to prepare the perfect cup of coffee for myself at home. Finally, the risk of a disappointing start to every day has been eliminated.

I’m grateful for this acquired knowledge. I’m also grateful for the convenience of coffeemakers. In an email conversation with my father this past week, we spoke of coffee. He described to me how coffee was made in Trinidad before coffeemaker technology developed. I figure this must have been about three hundred years ago, when he was a little boy.

“The (very) old, traditional way to make coffee in Trinidad – the way they used to do it before percolators and coffee machines – was to put finely ground coffee (which is an important crop in Trinidad, of course) into a saucepan. Then, they put the coffee-containing saucepan onto the fire and let it get warm. This roasted the ground coffee a little more, and the whole place got to smell deliciously of coffee roasting. Without letting the coffee roast too much, they then poured the required amount of boiling water into the saucepan, and immediately took the saucepan off the fire. They let it “draw” a little, and when they thought that the water had absorbed enough coffee, they then put about a desert spoon of cold water into the coffee (still in the saucepan), in order to encourage the coffee grounds to sink to the bottom of the saucepan. Then, they drank it.”

Good Lord! Can you imagine? I think I’d need a cup of coffee to stay awake long enough to brew another pot! Sometimes I’m willing to put more work into my coffee-making, grinding the beans myself, boiling water and using a French press. For the most part, however, I use a coffeemaker. I love my coffeemaker and think of it as a good good friend – someone I want to say good morning to every day and before almost anyone else – now that’s a good friend.