Good Coffee Bad Coffee
June 24, 2008
In response to my recent post about looking for a decent cup of coffee in Utah, and some people commenting on America's general reputation for shitty coffee, a reader named Marc, who happens to be the marketing director of Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea in Chicago, offered to send me some of their product to try.
He wrote, "Whenever someone tells me that they traveled to Paris and the coffee was great everywhere, I know that they are responding more to the place that they drank the coffee rather than the quality of the coffee itself. You can get good wine in Europe and bad wine in Europe. You can get good and bad coffee, chocolate, whatever in both Europe and the US."
I was reminded that the worst pizza I ever had was in Florence. Of course, that perception was probably influenced by the pizza chef trying to grope me.
But it's true, you can get bad coffee in Paris. And it's become easier than ever now that Starbucks has opened several coffee shops there. Despite all the dire predictions, they've been surprisingly successful, too. (And, no, not just with American tourists.) The bad coffee I had in Paris wasn't from Starbucks, though; it was from a small stand at Gare du Nord on my way out of town. "One more for the road" turned out to be a disappointment, as it so often is.
Time and place play a huge part in our perceptions, like a crappy song suddenly sounding good because you're having a good time when you hear it. I remember being on a camping trip years ago and eating freeze-dried something or other and thinking it tasted like the greatest gourmet meal ever. I had a few bags of the stuff left over from the trip, and one day, when there was nothing else in the apartment to eat, I decided to boil it up for dinner.
"Ugh, holy shit, how the hell did I eat this stuff and think it was good? How the hell did I eat it at all?"
I ate less than half of it before throwing it in the garbage.
I also know that, out of all the mugs in my cupboard, coffee always tastes best out of the souvenir Guinness mug I bought in Dublin.
On the other hand, train station coffee aside, every cup of coffee I drank at an outdoor café in Paris was perfect. I was there for weeks and had too many coffees for it to be simply time and place. Likewise, there's no denying that good coffee in America is a rarity. What to do? Well, for one thing, good coffee is heavily dependent on good preparation, so if you want it done to your specifications, you have to do it yourself.
The Intelligentsia "Black Cat" espresso beans that Marc sent arrived last night. I descaled my cooker, cleaned out my grinder, and got everything ready for the morning. But I was too excited to wait and decided to prepare a cup right away.
I'm not a connoisseur, and since it was sent to me for free, I can't really be trusted with an honest review, but the coffee was delicious. I offered Deborah a sip, and she agreed. "Yum," I think she said.
Unfortunately, drinking espresso just before bed isn't such a great idea, time and place, after all, and I was up way too late. Which meant I slept too late, which meant I barely had time to make a morning cup, let alone drink it or write about drinking it.
When I have more time, I'll write about how busy I am.
