Better not bitter

Coffee has a rich and ancient history. Legend has it that a goat herder in Ethiopia first noticed that his goats had the jitters and were a bit cranky. Goats are about the only animal that could have digested the bright green and red ripe berries growing on the coffee tree.

The rich brew has grown from its humble beginnings with goats, traveled the silk roads of Asia, shipped across oceans to the New World, cultivated to new heights, fetching at times hundreds of dollars for a pound of the aromatic mystic. Today in fad America, you can have this strangely fulfilling brew with your biggie fries and a cheeseburger, or maybe a nut-encrusted cream-filled chocolate bag of mini donuts.

Coffee, like wine, has very fine characteristics and nuances. A velvet merlot aged in oak barrels disperses across the palette the essence of the oak melded with the fruity grape and the swell of mellow aromatics rolls at the back of your throat. A perfect Tanzanian pea berry coffee roasted just into the second crack wafts toasted caramel nuts and vanilla berry tones with the rich body soaking the sides of your tongue.

You cannot taste a great merlot if you mix ginger ale and cherries in the glass. Who would do that to great wines? Who would make coffee taste like an oak barrel? Probably the same people who sell bags of burgers, fries and a finger whistle that is supposed to summon ninja robots that transform into overweight pudgy children.

The wonders of mass marketing bring us such tasty little morsels like three-hour sabbaticals so that we can get in touch with our inner coffee selves. Soon I will write a book, Zen and the Art of Macchiato Maintenance!

Seattle gave us the dark roast, but there is so much more to coffee. To roast all coffees dark is a big mistake. Some coffees when roasted dark become bitter and the nuances become mutated.

The beautiful Colombian coffee tree, lush and green, yields ripe berries. If we are lucky, the berries are processed properly and then roasted to a light mahogany just before the soft oils rise to the surface. The grind is no larger than a pin head, but perfect to be immersed in water which yields a nose of brightness and vanilla that clicks at the top of your palette a chocolate spark rich in aromatic tones that drift into serenity. Peru La Florida roasted the darkest of darks, the French roast, has no bite to it but a velvet nutty nuance that coats your palette like honey butter.

Fast food 99-cent coffee service with the mega gulp cup is always going to be around. But there will also always be a few islands of retreat for those that have a moment to indulge in the better things in life.

Your soul will thank you.