Coffee art

This is from Rita Shears on deviantart.com

Interesting.

I loved my first taste of coffee ice cream as a child.

go figure.

I can't imagine tea in the morning.

I drink 1 cup a day, one cup only.

It must be

BLACK
FRESH
STRONG - not espresso strong, but a good cup 'o joe.

I can't/won't drink coffee that's even 1/2 hour old, well, maybe 40 minutes

Riprap once posted a whole technique for keeping coffee fresh - something like shut it off immediately and pour the coffee into a very good thermos. Don't trust me though; it might have been more complicated. I now shut my coffee off immediately or slightly after. Drink a second cup microwaved though.

I disagree with the fellow on his coffee choices, ms. picky you know .. but I love the fairly wry drawings on napkins, and the combo of the drawings and the commentaries, which really work as a piece.

On coffee ice cream, it was ok, but I was always sorely disappointed it wasn't chocolate. As a grownup, I did like coffee ice cream. Don't see it much anymore.

Adds, whether I add milk, etc., depends on the quality of the coffee. I like Peet's House Blend, and don't usually adulterate that - but don't often spring for it.

I think I remember riprap teaching us that.

fortunately, I don't want more than 1 cup.

after that, just doesn't seem appealing.

I have the good sense of being a tea drinker, coffee about 2 cups per week. Also I hate art.

Well, two down, but you do like ice cream...

by G. Gorham

One more of Niemann's drawings w/comments -



When I was 10 I still hated coffee, but fell in love with the ritual of making coffee. My parents were thankful enough about me fixing them coffee every morning that they overlooked my first clashes with brewing technology.


end/clip

As a child I was fascinated by my parents morning ritual of making coffee on the stove in one those percolator pots. My father drank it straight, my mother put in a good dose of milk or cream. One day my father noticed my interest and asked if I wanted to try it. I sure did. He waited until it cooled and handed me the cup. I took a big gulp, like it was orange juice. I barely swallowed any before I ran to the sink to spit it out and started to cry. My mother heard me from the next room and came in to see what was wrong. I was screaming that "Daddy tried to kill me!". My father looked guilty and denied nothing. It took about 10 years, and a heavy college schedule, for me to try it again. I now drink 2-3 of cups a day. Iced in the summer. I have not turned it into an art and will even drink the instant stuff.

I can appreciate that.

I associate tea with relaxing, and coffee with waking up. I'll maybe drink a cup of coffee other than in the morning maybe 3 or 4 times a year.

If I'm flagging during the day, I think coffee would just make me jittery. Plus, I don't like the taste it leaves in my mouth, and it makes me thirsty.

Re: ritual, I don't have a particular ritual with coffee, except that I'm always please if I go to make it in the morning, and see that my husband thoughtfully set it up the night before. Making coffee and simultaneously dealing with 3 cats that want their breakfast is difficult.

Despite my online name, I don't particular care one way or the other about chai, meaning with the spices and/or milk, soy milk, etc.

I do love my green tea though. Once I discovered loose leaf gyokuro green tea, it became my beverage of choice, hot or cold. I'm not a fussy person when it comes to food/beverage choices, but in this case, even though it costs quite a bit (I try to find the best deal online), I wouldn't bother drinking green tea if it wasn't this type.

I do have a ritual making my tea throughout the day, as the water has to be a lower temperature than boiling, it needs to steep for a particular amount of time, etc. You can't just walk away from it. For me, it brings me into the moment, centers me.

After brewed the leaves are all expanded, and I find it very pleasant to put some of it between my cheek and gum, like chewing tobacco.

I used to visit Peet's Coffee House off of Shattack Avenue in Berkeley at least once a month. They had the best coffee in the world. I still have a brown ceramic coffee pot and brewer that I bought at Peet's in the 1970s that made great coffee for me.

BBB

I use to drink coffee every day. Years ago, when I had the flu, I kept myself on juices and teas. I went two weeks without coffee/caffeine. Ever since that, I drink coffee about two or three times a week.
Coffee. A better tasting cup, when bottled or filtered water is used.
I agree with chai2 when she associates tea with relaxing, and coffee with waking up. I grow all the herbs for my wifes teas. One of my favorites, is a blackberry sage tea. By fall, I'm scrambling around the landscape, harvesting and drying, all the leaves I can.

I've been to the one on the corner of 4th and something in Berkeley, and the one on Chestnut, and one (my first latte ever ever) in San Mateo (?) or Palo Alto, my unclarity being because I was visiting friends, who did the driving. Still have one of the plastic coffee holders (don't know what you call them, but like small thermoses) from the place on Chestnut. Schniff.

The visit to the one in San Mateo might have been in the seventies too. That or early 80's.

That's cool, Alex. Homemade blackberry sage tea...