The Coffee Chronicles
Memoirs of the miasmic brew in my life, plus the random review and/or impressions of coffee houses in the greater Seattle area.
The Early Eighties
I turned 18 my first week of college in Bellingham, Washington; first time living away from home, a wild child loosed upon the world, old enough to vote and eager to taste all of life. I found I needed a little boost in the mornings, to help keep me awake in those early 101 classes where the professors droned in huge lecture halls, the soporific static of hundreds of pens scratching notes lulling me to sleep. Coffee was the cheap, legal drug of choice. Straight-up black and hot, so the first sip burned and jerked my head back. I was now a Coffee Drinker, just like my dad, cigarette in one hand, cup of strong Navy coffee in the other – subbing the ciggy with a pen, preferably with purple ink, in my case.
I soon discovered Tony’s Coffee House – worn wooden floors; warm, comforting aroma wafting throughout; people hunched over tables scattered with open books, highlighters, half-filled cups and plates with remnants of something delicious – coffee cake crumbs or cream cheese-spattered sprouts; the campus radio station where I would DJ, KUGS, playing in the background, competing with the bean grinders and espresso machines steaming noisily like a locomotive in a cliché black and white movie scene; long-haired baristas with big pupils and easy smiles; and the dusky, exotic, never-going-back to Maxwell House, where have you been all my life, seductive taste of Sumatra. I was filled with a sense of conspiracy just asking for a pound of it, the name floating over the counter like a warm breath. Sumatra, that dark sorceress, lifted her veils and showed me the velvety, sultry world of good coffee.
I soon discovered Tony’s Coffee House – worn wooden floors; warm, comforting aroma wafting throughout; people hunched over tables scattered with open books, highlighters, half-filled cups and plates with remnants of something delicious – coffee cake crumbs or cream cheese-spattered sprouts; the campus radio station where I would DJ, KUGS, playing in the background, competing with the bean grinders and espresso machines steaming noisily like a locomotive in a cliché black and white movie scene; long-haired baristas with big pupils and easy smiles; and the dusky, exotic, never-going-back to Maxwell House, where have you been all my life, seductive taste of Sumatra. I was filled with a sense of conspiracy just asking for a pound of it, the name floating over the counter like a warm breath. Sumatra, that dark sorceress, lifted her veils and showed me the velvety, sultry world of good coffee.
The Mid-Eighties
My post-graduation internship transports me from mellow, patchouli-scented Bellingham and plops me down in a viperous nest of yuppies at a company in downtown Seattle that produces commercials. They feel sorry for me and my indentured state, so I let them assuage their guilt and buy me coffee. A lot. Fueled on ambition and caffeine I hang on to the tails of their starched button-down shirts with the popped collars vamped-up around their ears and fly behind them, lust over their Ray Ban’s and monster-clunky car phones, taking rides in Maserati’s, heartily devour the catered meals provided for the clients and models (who aren’t eating anyway—unlike sweaty, filthy me, running cords, setting up heavy lights, painting the floor, the cyclorama, and my Army pants I’ve adopted as my official Grip Wear…). I quaff rich and delish local coffee as invigorating as the sea breeze wafting up the hill from Elliott Bay starting early every morning and running late into the night just to keep up. My eyes take on an icy blue glaze as I try to balance un-paid work, family, job search and the newfound vibrancy of Seattle during the Eighties.
Late-Eighties, Early Nineties
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I’ve weaned myself off a sadly indifferent marriage and nighttime coffee, and have started taking a leisurely morning coffee break at my first full-time, 9 to 5, run-from-the-car-to-the-time-card-machine-or-it-will-dock-you-15-minutes-if-you’re-3-minutes-late-and-then-you’ll-hop-around-like-Yosemite Sam-ears-steaming-unintelligible-curses-flying job. I discover I have a weakness for mochas made with perfection and served in a real glass by the dreamy-eyed, yet goofy, Iranian man who owns the local coffee shop (until Starbucks rears its corporate head and builds a store right across the street forcing him to downsize and relocate) and would become a lifelong friend. I discard the sweetness of the mocha for a white-frothed latte as I happily indulge in the ultimate coffee accompaniment, the almond croissant – I shivered with pleasure just typing it.
Enter Joe, enter love. We meet at work, we start taking breaks together, getting to know each other over hot…but wait. Joe doesn’t drink coffee! In the first of many corruptions, I don my devil horns and start him on the Gateway Coffee Drug, the mocha. He’s a fiend for chocolate, so it’s easy. Warm bellies, warm hearts. |
2000, Under the Spell of Paris
In the summer of 2000 we fall in love with Paris, its museums, restaurants, parks, people, churches, all of it. We are enchanted with our small cups of espresso, slightly sweetened with sugar cubes and cream that’s so much better than it is here, and simply sitting at the sidewalk cafes as life flows around us. We sit on the Seine, legs dangling over the wall, eating pain au chocolat from the neighborhood boulangerie, and when the tour boats go by we embrace and kiss passionately, putting on a show for the gawking crowd. At night in our rented apartment, we dreamed of faxing home “sell everything, send the cat!”
When we return we buy a set of bright red espresso cups with matching saucers (made in Germany, but close enough for us), and we begin a ritual of coffee in bed during the weekends, that we continue to this day. Mostly it’s Joe serving me, because I am a princess, who luxuriates within the nest of our bed while he tends the dragon rumble of the espresso pot in the kitchen, then we sip from our beautiful cups and discuss the day ahead of us. I’m hoping this is how I will die someday, in old age with Joe, peacefully in bed with an empty cup of glorious coffee by my pillow.
A man in pajamas brings coffee
in shiny red cups from Deutschland
They sit in bed and sip
Bean elixir on their lips
Dreams and days ahead to plan.
(excerpt from a song I wrote)
When we return we buy a set of bright red espresso cups with matching saucers (made in Germany, but close enough for us), and we begin a ritual of coffee in bed during the weekends, that we continue to this day. Mostly it’s Joe serving me, because I am a princess, who luxuriates within the nest of our bed while he tends the dragon rumble of the espresso pot in the kitchen, then we sip from our beautiful cups and discuss the day ahead of us. I’m hoping this is how I will die someday, in old age with Joe, peacefully in bed with an empty cup of glorious coffee by my pillow.
A man in pajamas brings coffee
in shiny red cups from Deutschland
They sit in bed and sip
Bean elixir on their lips
Dreams and days ahead to plan.
(excerpt from a song I wrote)