There is a bar in my town… there are many, actually. Some of them are good, some of them I still think of as my own.
Cozy or trendy places, always watching a considerable amount of people coming and going every day.
Some are fancy, some are very humble. Many stories live in there, the owners or the workers like little mirrors in the afteroons of your days.
It’s a series of nice places, where so many ordinarily special things happen.
There is one thing they have in common. Other than the people (and a good story, of course).
The Coffee.
The Coffee, with a capital C, is an institution. Is something to respect, to admire, to know and discern, to enjoy with awareness, being it gobbled down avidly or slowly, sensuosly sipped.
The coffee is important around here.
Every barista who is at least a little proud of his trade, boasts in his coffee-making skills. It’s a technique, yet it’s more than that, it’s an art.
Don’t be fooled by this general mood of connoisseurism, though.
Only few selected places can provide the Coffee with the capital C.
There’s a huge literature about this, I’m sure, as well as an oral tradition. A feather in the cap of that silly nation I happen to be from.
So I won’t be verbose about this.
Oh, did I mention that the one and only Coffee is the Espresso? Silly me, it still feels obvious to me.
Of course there is Cappuccino, Caffè Macchiato, Latte Macchiato, Caffelatte, even Marocchino, Ginseng, and so on, you name it.
But when you say “let’s go get a coffee”, there is one thing in the mind of the bystanders: the fabled ceramic little cup with just enough of that precious, slightly foamy, smoking fluid which we use to call, once again, “Coffee”.
And the smell? The smell of roasting coffee beans is legendary. But I’m digressing.
I have a thing for ceramic cups, you know?
There is a specific thickness that grants the best results when enjoying an espresso.
Most people ignore the reasons, but it has to do with thermal inertia and conductivity, respectively.
And to think that there is a whole category of persons who require to have an espresso “al vetro” – to the glass, namely, in a little glass. Blasphemy.
The very very vast majority uses to put sugar in it, and not just a little sometimes. The purists, like I myself a little am, train themselves to take it black. To taste it entirely, completely, with no adulteration, in all its precious and glorious aroma.
Then, there is the rule of the 3 Cs, which I cannot quote nor translate adequately, three words starting with c that can be roughly translated as the 3 Hs: “Hell, How Hot!”
A proper coffee shouldn’t have time to cool off at all. It wouldn’t be strange if, say you forget to drink it distracted by something else, the barista would silently take it back, throw it away, then brew another one when you’re ready.
Even in summer, when it’s sunny and hot, espressos would still be served, and consumed, piping hot.
There is an exception though.
And here you can imagine the curve on a cartesian plane, with temperature of the coffee on the y axis and air temperature on the x. It would resemble a step, slightly rounded. A discreet switching between two polarities.
The fancy “caffè freddo” – cold coffee, where cool is meant as ice-cool (or at least fridge-cool).
In other words, you go from a hot espresso in almost any circumstances, to a cool refreshing, lighter but longer cold coffee in the hottest days of the year (which to me correspond to the whole summer, rounding upwards).
The baristas use to prepare big bottles of this concoction, using long espresso, or coffee and water, or ice, and sugar, shaking it all, and leaving it chilling in the fridge.
It’s like a second class coffee. Made for when you don’t have the guts to handle a proper Espresso.
I enjoy it though.
Of course it doesn’t exist here. There is no reason to, after all.
But the room temperature coffee, from where I am from, is a blasphemy everyone agrees to condemn. Ceramic guys like me, glass people, fancy macchiato people, spiked coffee users, vegans and flat-earthers: probably even toddlers are disgusted at the thought.
—
Then, another image comes to my mind.
Afternoon, lazy afternoon or an ordinary warm day.
Parents taking the proverbial after lunch nap. For some reason you are awake, and roaming the house.
Maybe it’s the silence, the quiet. The cat is sleeping too on the kitchen chair, right in that spot where the risk of being stroked is minimized, and where she can better intercept the feeble draft coming from the window open wide.
The sun hits the sun shade on the balcony, its power very poorly restrained by the dark fabric.
Items from the lunch have remained on the table. You haven’t carried out completely (yet) the chore assigned to you by your mother.
The table cloth with random breadcrumbs on it. A glass, a couple of dirty paper napkins. A rounded knife. The empty bottle of wine. The butt of the salami you almost finished.
More stuff is on the stove and the kitchen counter. It bothers you, seeing it, and you don’t know if it more or less so than the thought of it.
The coffee machine is there too, with its funny, indifferent stance. Black elbow on the hip, metal chin up.
You don’t like moka coffee very much. (There’s only one Coffee, with a capital c… The words start flowing in your head once again).
But you know, coffee is always coffee after all, and where’s no espresso maker, a moka can make your day.
Before rinsing it (NEVER wash a moka!) and putting it away, you open the lid.
There is still some coffee there.
Room temperature, summer, hazy, dazey coffee.
And it’s just perfect.
