World's Best Cup of Coffee

World's Best Cup of Rooibos Tea

I heard on the radio this morning that a barrista from Toronto is going to be representing Canada in the "World's Best Cup of Coffee" contest in Australia. Well, congratulations, Josh Whatever-your-name-is. I sincerely hope you have a marvellous time in Oz, whether you win or not.

But it got me to thinking: how silly is that? World's best cup of coffee? What a strange society we live in. Everything we do, everything that exists, must be graded on a scale from bad to good, with one item, and one only, at the very apex as "world's best". One "best cup of coffee". We set up committees (lots of doubled letters in that word. Almost like Mississippi. World's most-overloaded-with-double-letters word?) to determine just which cup of coffee is THE best - the BEST! - which means we have to determine who is the best coffee taster in the world - because obviously, only the best coffee taster can determine the best cup of coffee. So now we have the apex of the human pyramid, with ultra-coffee-taster at the very top, far above the dull and witless masses who are only able to enjoy their ordinary, un-best, dull and witless coffee (by the potful, no less), not comprehending the quality, the sheer superiority of the Best Cup of Coffee (note caps).

But, wait - the witless masses enjoy their coffee. That first sip from your favourite mug, poured from a freshly brewed pot of the roast you like best, on a morning when you're still half asleep, but the birds are chirping outside in the sunshine because spring has finally arrived - I defy any barrista, even the national coffee-making champion, to brew a cup to match that bliss. Okay, I'm talking just a little bit through my hat here (or through my teacup, as it were) - I don't drink coffee, never have. So the "you" in that preceding sentence is intentional - it's your first sip of coffee, not mine. Mine's the sip of tea, of which I consume gallons (being a confirmed teaist). But the principle is the same.

Because, you see - there is no "world's best cup of coffee", at least not one that everyone, everywhere will agree on. World's best cup of coffee was not, as my favourite radio show host would have it, brewed yesterday in Toronto, and it won't be brewed sometime next week (or whenever that contest is held) in Australia. World's best cup of coffee, if you're lucky, will be brewed in your coffeemaker, by you, maybe even today. And again tomorrow. And the day after that. Or maybe your husband will brew it for you. Now that would take it right over the top. A blissful hot drink, served to you by the person you love best - it doesn't get better than that.

Sorry, champion barrista - I'm sure you make an amazingly good cup of coffee (at least good for those who like coffee). But it's not the world's best. It can't be. Because the best cup of coffee is the one right here, right now. As is the best cup of tea, the best piece of cake, the best bout of lovemaking. There is no apex to the pyramid, because it's not a pyramid. It's about the here and now. Best is what I have today. And perhaps tomorrow, or the day after. Best is mine.

Life, the Universe, and World's Best Cup of Coffee. Pass the tea, please.

Powerless

The power went out an hour ago. It blinked, twitched, came on again for a split second (just enough to make the charging cell phones squawk), and then took a leave of absence, time of return not specified. So now we're powerless. At this moment, I still have 73% battery power, rapidly diminishing, and, of course, no internet.

Being without power is kind of amusing for a little while. I always have to think carefully about what I can and cannot do without electricity. Fortunately, my tea maker was done doing its thing, so I had a pot of hot tea available, and everyone was finished having breakfast, so no need for eating untoasted toast (which would, of course, have been a terrible experience).

But I had to consider how to keep my tea hot. Usually, I just leave the pot sitting on the counter, and zap a cup of the lukewarm brew in the microwave when I'm in need of caffeinated refreshment (which, as a rule, is about once every fifteen minutes, until the pot runs dry). Well, zappage capacities vanish with the departure of power. So, some other means of keeping the tea toasty had to be found.

At first I pulled out a tea cosy. I've got a couple of them; one of them I knitted out of ugly thick brown wool, and it goes quite charmingly around my White Betty teapot (is there such a thing - a White Betty? It's shaped just like a Brown Betty, but it's white porcelain.). The brown wool works very well to hide those hideous tea dribbles that always run off the spout and disfigure any other self-respecting tea cosy, which is why I chose that particular yarn. However, that particular cosy won't fit over the glass carafe that goes with the tea maker (which is, technically, a coffee maker, but woe betide the hapless innocent who dares put the bean grind into my brew machine! There's nothing worse than tea made in a coffee maker. Blch - cofftea. Coffee flavour is horrifically penetrant, sort of like peanut butter in hot-drink format. Tea is a delicate thing, easily bullied by the heftier brew. No coffee in my tea maker, got that?). So: brown woolly cosy, tea maker carafe, no fit. Then, I took out the thick quilted pink floral thing I got for a present a while back; it ties around the top. It worked, sort of, but it wasn't entirely satisfactory.

But then I went "D'uh!" The piece of equipment that is designed for this very purpose, the item I wanted here, is the Stövchen. It's an East Frisian tea-keeper-warmer. You see that candle in the bottom? That's why that kind of candle is called a tea light.

So, I fished the Stövchen off the top of the microwave where it usually resides, lit the candle, parked the tea pot on top, and was ready for a prolonged bout of powerlessness.

However, seeing as you're reading this on the internet just now, you can conclude that the power did, eventually, come back on. My battery was down to 54%, the cell phones let out another strangled squawk, the smoke alarm screeched briefly, and we were back to humming along in our usual electrified way. But it's always kind of fun to think about how you could function without the blessed power of the hydro dam, isn't it? So long as it doesn't last all that long.

Life, the Universe, and Powerlessness. It's good to have a Stövchen in reserve.

A Dream and a Coffee Date

I had a dream last night that my blog suddenly got famous. See, what happened was, I got a Scholastic magazine in the mail, and was reading it, and suddenly, there was this article about blogs, and it listed mine as an example of a really great blog! It was a magazine for teachers, too. I was shocked, and very excited, as I had had no idea Scholastic would do such a thing. I didn't even have any idea Scholastic had teacher's magazines. Which, of course, they don't, so I didn't actually get one in the mail and they didn't advertise my blog in it; it was just my dream-addled brain that had me thinking so. There was also something in that article about some of the other things I do, like write stories, which they couldn't know about as I'd never written of them online, and there was the consideration of changing the whole background of the blog to bright turquoise, which is a deeply significant colour in one of those stories I've written.

Don't worry, I won't go turquoise. My eyes couldn't stand it. I don't even like blogs which are white-on-black writing, I find them really difficult to read. But Scholastic is still a great company, even if they don't put out teacher's magazines in which they advertise my blog. Maybe I should suggest it to them.

On another note, Steve and I had coffee with my friend Bonnie Heather yesterday. Well, Bonnie had coffee, Steve and I had a Glasgow Fog (that's the same as a London Fog, except made by a person with a Scots background). I got a sneak peek at Bonnie's new painting, which is really great; the person who commissioned is going to be very happy with it, I'm sure. And we talked about Art, Life, the Universe, and Everything, so it was just what a coffee date should be. (Even without me drinking coffee. Which I don't, ever; I just don't like the taste. But that's another topic. Wait - there was something in that famous-blog-dream about me drinking coffee, too! Which just goes to show that the whole thing really was only imaginary. Too bad.)

Here is Steve, trying to see if there's any Glasgow Fog left in the cup. And afterwards, he was comatose; Horatio was not impressed. I guess Earl Grey tea, steamed milk and sugar syrup don't agree with stuffed bears.

Life, the Universe, and Dreams. Maybe Steve would have been better off having coffee?

California Dreamin'

It snowed last night. Again. Grey skies, white ground, grey slushy roads. There was nothing else for it, I had to pop the Mamas And The Papas album into the car CD player and listen to "California Dreamin'" all the way to town and back. And I was going to moan, snivel and whine about this weather to you today, but then I realised that the more I think about it, the more depressed it's making me. So I won't.

Just yesterday, I heard a spring bird chirping outside my window. And the snowdrops are still going strong, with the crocus and daffodil shoots making an appearance just a few inches over from them, too. It seems winter and spring are really duking it out this year. Winter is probably trying to make up for its initial reluctance by excessive February tenacity. But, alas, it's a losing battle; winter is doomed. It's just trying to make me feel some of its gloom before it goes. So I'll look at my California pictures and blow a raspberry at winter, because I know the sun will be back eventually.

And then I was thinking about this phrase, "duking it out". Aren't there some kind of rules for boxing matches that were first written down by a duke of some sort? Queensberry Rules, I believe. Oh, no, wait, Queensberry was a Marquess. Wrong sort of aristocrat, one level too low for a Duke. But higher up in the ranks than Earl Grey and the Earl of Sandwich, whose inventions were far more useful to humankind than a set of regulations for which part of the body you're allowed to land a blow on.

Life, the Universe, Seasons and Sandwiches. I know which aristocratic inventions are highest on my list. Do you take milk in yours?

Teaism

Inquiring minds have inquired - no, wait, the mouths associated with the inquiring minds have inquired - no, actually, it was the fingers attached to the hands associated with the inquiring minds... Aw, heck. Some folks 'as wanted to know what's with this "Teaist" thing down there in my side bar. Let me enlighten you.

Teaism is a religious persuasion not unlike Theism or Deism. The most basic tenet of its beliefs is that "A Good Cuppa Cures All Ills." But actually, because tea-drinking encourages moderation and tolerance, we don't insist on our members subscribing to this doctrine verbatim. If you are more comfortable with stating that "A Good Cuppa Is a Fair Beginning to Making One Feel Somewhat Better About a Considerable Number Of Ills," that's good enough. You're in. As long as you appreciate a cuppa, we welcome you to our ranks.

Teaism is a religion of diversity. Of course it began with the common tea plant, Camellia Sinensis, sipped as good ol' English Breakfast, Orange Pekoe (which, incidentally, has nothing more to do with the citrus fruit than that they're both named for the Dutch Royal house of Oranje- or maybe the house for the fruit, and the tea after the house, or the other way round), or any other number of "plain blacks". But there the diversity begins. There are so many varieties of even just black tea (ever tried Darjeeling, the "champagne of teas"?), never mind the ways to drink it. With sugar or without, with milk, with cream, with lemon (though not all at once- my brother tried that once when we were kids; he got banned to the next room while finishing up the resulting revoltingly curdled mess, rather like slimy, stringy cottage cheese floating in the tea. Not pretty.). Then there's green tea, white tea, oolong- all of those still from the same plant, just different processing techniques. All delicious brewed up in the cup. And then we get into what Hercule Poirot calls "tisane", which roughly translates into any tea that's not made from the camellia sinensis plant. My favourite would be peppermint, homegrown if I can get it- it's got more bite that way than the stuff in the tea bags. Chamomile is a lovely soother. Rosehip has a great tang, almost like fruit juice. And I won't even begin to list the varieties that are purely medicinal; we'd still be here tomorrow.

Incidentally, my daily brew of choice, gunpowder green, does not, in spite of its name, encourage violence. In vino veritas, in camelliam sinensis pacem. May the brew be with you.

Coffee that doesn't taste like coffee?

As my friend Wade so eloquently says, this article is an example of everything that's wrong with the world. Coffee that doesn't taste like coffee? Uh, why?!? Perhaps, because you still want the caffeine, but don't like the flavour? But, no. This stuff hasn't got the caffeine, either. So it doesn't taste like coffee, and doesn't do what coffee does- so what are the coffee beans doing in it in the first place?

On behalf of all my coffee-loving friends, I'm offended. I don't drink coffee, myself, because I don't like the taste (sorry). Occasionally, I'll have some if the only alternative is using matchsticks to prop open my eyelids. But I don't enjoy it. I wish I did; I wish I liked coffee. It smells great, especially the fresh grounds; there are so many delicious-sounding varieties of it; it blends much better with chocolate than, say, tea. And then there's the social aspect of it - everybody's drinking it; there's coffee bars and coffee houses all over the place, and whenever somebody hands out "refreshments", they usually involve the bean brew.

So, no, sorry, Starbucks, this really isn't going to cut it for me, either. It covers none of the aforementioned uses for coffee. In fact, I'm still utterly puzzled as to the purpose of this new stuff.

Oh, and just by the way, people, let me give you a little hint: if you want something that's a) not roasted, b) doesn't taste like coffee, c) has small amounts of caffeine in it, d) blends well with fruit flavours, e) tastes great iced, and f) is very refreshing, there's this stuff called - here, let me whisper it to you: psspsspss. That's right. Spelled T-E-A. Rumour has it, you can even get it at Starbucks.

Life, the universe, and coffee-that-doesn't-taste-like-coffee. What next?