From Esquire's 1949 Handbook for Hosts:
I'll tell you why most women can't make good coffee: because they think of it as a drug. If you avoid making that mistake you can set your feet on the road to enlightenment.
Watch a woman in action and you will see what I mean. For the average female coffee drinker or feminized male, caffeine is either a morning jolt or the cause of insomnia. When she-he puts a cup of strong-tasting coffee to her lips, she thinks "Oh-oh powerful drug". She-he doesn't notice the taste as taste but rather she notices it as a warning the same way she might notice the smell of smoke and worry that her house is on fire.
On the other hand, when she-he is looking for a jolt, they want to get the stuff into their bloodstream in large quantities as that can be easily swallowed as quickly as possible. So they go to their drip coffee maker and pour the results into a really big mug. Or they belly up to the bar and ask for "Venti™"!
That's a problem because, while not all strong coffee is good coffee, all good coffee is strong coffee. (If you prefer a subtle coffee taste, dilute it with cream or hot milk. Do not brew weak coffee; "Café Americano" is an Italian term that means "serve this crap to the tourists because it is a sin to throw pearls before swine".)
So your first important tip is this: don't drink coffee every day. If you met someone at a party who said, "I love rum so much I drink a mickey of it everyday", you'd have no trouble figuring out what was really going on. The person who has four or five cups of coffee a day or orders a "Venti™" when they go to Starbucks is addicted to a drug and is no better qualified to judge good coffee than a crack addict.
The second important thing to know is that the best part of any drink is the first few sips. The returns diminish after that. This is true of many things; the greatest moment is when she first ... . So make something of that first moment. Sit down and anticipate. Pick the cup up gently and reverently and smell it. Take the time to enjoy it. Then take a taste. Miss this moment and you can't get it back.
An important tip for drinking coffee, whisky and brandy given me when I was a boy is to avoid the tip. Get the drink over the tip of your tongue onto the middle of your tongue. Then cradle it there. Wash it around your the middle of your tongue and only then, when it is slightly cooled and mixed with your own juices, let it slide forward over your tongue. As you do so, savour the tastes of coffee, for it has many tastes.
There is lots of good advice out there about buying and making good coffee but it will all be useless to you if you don't know how to enjoy good coffee.
When coffee was introduced to Europe in the 16th century, people thought it rendered women frigid and even barren; a law was promptly passes in Constantinople giving husbands the right to prevent the use of coffee by their wives. Maybe that's why the average woman, to this day, can't make a good cup of coffee. It must be that, basically, coffee is a man's drink. When subjected to the economies of drugstore waitresses or the casual inattention of wives, the cup that cheers but does not inebriate is apt to become a mean, thin liquid with almost unlimited capacities for discouraging real coffee lovers.It's a shame we have lost this sort of gentle mockery between the sexes. And, old-fashioned as it may seem, there is something to it; to this day the average woman still makes and then cheerfully drinks a lousy cup of coffee. It is a sad sign of how badly male society has been degraded that many average men don't do much better.
I'll tell you why most women can't make good coffee: because they think of it as a drug. If you avoid making that mistake you can set your feet on the road to enlightenment.
Watch a woman in action and you will see what I mean. For the average female coffee drinker or feminized male, caffeine is either a morning jolt or the cause of insomnia. When she-he puts a cup of strong-tasting coffee to her lips, she thinks "Oh-oh powerful drug". She-he doesn't notice the taste as taste but rather she notices it as a warning the same way she might notice the smell of smoke and worry that her house is on fire.
On the other hand, when she-he is looking for a jolt, they want to get the stuff into their bloodstream in large quantities as that can be easily swallowed as quickly as possible. So they go to their drip coffee maker and pour the results into a really big mug. Or they belly up to the bar and ask for "Venti™"!
That's a problem because, while not all strong coffee is good coffee, all good coffee is strong coffee. (If you prefer a subtle coffee taste, dilute it with cream or hot milk. Do not brew weak coffee; "Café Americano" is an Italian term that means "serve this crap to the tourists because it is a sin to throw pearls before swine".)
So your first important tip is this: don't drink coffee every day. If you met someone at a party who said, "I love rum so much I drink a mickey of it everyday", you'd have no trouble figuring out what was really going on. The person who has four or five cups of coffee a day or orders a "Venti™" when they go to Starbucks is addicted to a drug and is no better qualified to judge good coffee than a crack addict.
The second important thing to know is that the best part of any drink is the first few sips. The returns diminish after that. This is true of many things; the greatest moment is when she first ... . So make something of that first moment. Sit down and anticipate. Pick the cup up gently and reverently and smell it. Take the time to enjoy it. Then take a taste. Miss this moment and you can't get it back.
An important tip for drinking coffee, whisky and brandy given me when I was a boy is to avoid the tip. Get the drink over the tip of your tongue onto the middle of your tongue. Then cradle it there. Wash it around your the middle of your tongue and only then, when it is slightly cooled and mixed with your own juices, let it slide forward over your tongue. As you do so, savour the tastes of coffee, for it has many tastes.
There is lots of good advice out there about buying and making good coffee but it will all be useless to you if you don't know how to enjoy good coffee.
Pooh. You're just wrong about women and coffee. And, anyway, why is it that most men can't make a decent cup fo tea?
ReplyDeleteBecause we don't like tea nearly as much as we like coffee.
ReplyDeletePS: Although I hate to brag, my devotion to the truth obliges me to add that I not only make a better cup of tea than anyone you know, I make a better cup of tea than anyone you've only heard of.
ReplyDeleteReally? By filling it with sugar??
ReplyDelete:-)
ReplyDeleteA little sugar adds depth to the tea.
I sometimes put in a little more than a little because it takes the edge off my sometimes sour disposition and makes my tea companions' time more agreeable. It's a sacrifice but sometimes it is important to think of others.