Coffee

You can tell I have another assignment coming up. But this is the last one for this module, then I'll be freeeee! At least until the next one begins in the new year.

Now you might remember me talking about the Union Coffee subscription I signed up to not so long ago. I recently got my first delivery - and the person I asked to get a photo of it while I was busy in the garden only managed this one single crappy attempt, so this will have to do:

Among the luscious freebies were two packets of Los Lajones honey canturra from Panama, from the producer Graciano Cruz on the Baru volcano, Boquete. And let me tell you, this is no ordinary coffee.

Hithertofore, the best coffee I've ever had was at Betty's in Harrogate. My brother and I were in the area and hungry roundabout Christmas, and as it was the only place open we, unwittingly, went in. We soon found ourselves barely able to conceal our gasps of shock at the prices on the menu, but - what the hell? It was Christmas and I was tolerably oofy at the time, so we went for it.

I was very sceptical of the idea that any coffee could be good enough to justify the £8 or so they charged for the single small cafetière of whatever it was I ordered. But what I tipped down my gullet refreshed the parts other coffees had never before reached and justified every penny I spent on it. It just kept on giving - throughout the next hour, long after I'd finished off the actual liquid, I was still getting new shades of flavour from it. For a while afterwards, all other coffee seemed like mere black grit in hot water. As an aside, the food was awesome, too, and should I find myself once more flush as I was I fully intend to go back there to celebrate the backlog of things I haven't celebrated in the past couple of years, but should've!

That was years ago. And though I'm not a skimper by habit (I've always preferred to have less of a good thing that costs more than more of a crap but cheap equivalent), I haven't since had anything close to that kind of coffee experience.

Until this. The flavour hits you in waves, then comes back again with new shades you hadn't tasted the first time round. It makes you want to drink it slowly, hold it in your mouth then swallow to savour what it has to give depending where it is on its journey through your digestive system.

You might think this sounds a bit over the top, but I kid you not. Not wanting to use it all up before the next delivery comes, I thought to alternate it with the cheaper stuff I had in stock, but... you can imagine how that worked out. Among the info that came in the box is the statement that it's as absurd to say "coffee is coffee" as it is to say "wine is wine" just because it all comes from grapes. How very true!

Indirectly then, it looks like this is going to be the reason why I get my caffeine addiction a little more under control: because I can't afford to drink as much of this stuff, and because, my taste buds being enlightened by it, I can't just put the scales back on my eyes (as it were) and stick the cheap stuff any more, I'm just going to have to drink less coffee! I can always appease the withdrawal headaches with tea, between my daily Cups of Special Coffee ;)