Laurie Snider
Notes from the Nest
My first memory of coffee was the vigorous, bubbling, gurgling sound the dark brown liquid made, spurting up and down into the small glass dome on the pot lid, as it perked merrily away on Mom and Dad’s stovetop. After completing an adequate period of robust roiling and boiling and once the strong, nutty aroma permeated our kitchen, two cups of the steaming elixir would be poured into waiting cups and Mom and Dad would sit and savour the opening ritual of their day.
When I joined the fray in my late teens, coffee was still a much simpler affair. Basically, your choices were cream and sugar or black, much of it still perked, although coffee makers were beginning to make their mark. Still it was a far cry from the tongue twisting mouth-full one must negotiate at this more enlightened time while regarding the bill of fare at your local coffee shop. “I’d like a half-calf, triple shot, frappe, mocha latte, with whipped crème,” or perhaps “a triple shot espresso straight-up. No, make that with extra sugar,” upon remembering the contorted face I made trying it straight up the last time! Blah!
For the most part my coffee intake is fairly simple, mostly from home from our coffee maker, not frequently venturing out to get my cuppa Joe abroad, although I do have a favourite cup. And like many North Americans I relish those first few comforting sips that rouse me each morning, kick-starting my day with flavor, body and a jolt of energy.
Canadians pride themselves as national coffee drinkers, especially with the frequency of our ‘double-double’ Timmie’s coffee runs but as far as intake we in fact finish tenth in the world behind a slew of Nordic countries. The people of Finland are at the front of the line as far as jitter juice consumption goes, each adult averaging 27.5lbs per year. Coffee is the second most popular drink in the world with an astounding 2.25 billion cups of coffee guzzled each day.
Coffee is actually a fruit. It is a berry and the beans are the seeds inside, which is harvested and processed before been shipped for roasting. Recently I spent an illuminating morning at a popular coffee shop in town, ‘Coffee Cravings,’ broadening my horizons, learning about all things coffee. Ashley Arnold, the owner/barista with his easy going, warm, genial manner assured me after two hours of legends, insights and discernment about what entails a “good cup of coffee,” that we’d barely scratched the surface.
He shared with me the tale of coffee’s discovery by goat herders who noticed that after consuming some strange berries, their formerly sleepy goats would jump and dance about, hence the name of the former coffee shop in Kingston, ‘The Sleepless Goat.” He also divulged that would makes his coffee so darn tasty is that it is roasted and shipped immediately arriving the next day, freshly ground before brewing and then served. You can’t get much fresher than that. Another little gem of information he imparted, I was unaware of was, “the lighter the roast the more caffeine, the darker roast the more flavour but less caffeine. Hmm!