Habit to Obsession

I love a good cup of coffee.  I particularly appreciate what coffee means to me. A mug of coffee in my hands communicates a sense of "slow down, take a breath, and relax".  I rarely drink coffee "on the go".  Coffee is meant to be enjoyed slowly - and preferably in one of two ways: with a friend or friends while engaged in conversation, or in absolute, complete, quiet solitude.

Some of my best Social Memories are of sitting around with family (usually the holidays) and "talking story" while sipping Starbucks Holiday Blend. 

But even I, and my love for the bean, must draw the line somewhere.  And the line I draw is connected by two distinct points.

Point A are coffee machines/brewers/percolators that cost more than a round trip ticket to Juan Valdez's home in Columbia. There is the new coffee machine invented by two gentlemen from Stanford University.  It costs $11,000.  It makes one cup of coffee - presumably VERY good coffee - at a time.  It's called a Clover.  Shops that use them charge up to $22 a cup.  Then there's the Japanese Siphon Bar.  A simple machine that does NOT make espresso - it makes coffee.  For $20,000.

 

                                               The Japanese Siphon Coffee Maker.  Just $20,000.

Point B lies a short distance away - and that is a $65 cup of coffee known as Kopi Luwak.  Or Civit Coffee.  Only 500 kilos are collected each year.  And collecting it must be half the joy of drinking it.  For those who haven't had the delight of being introduced to this blend.  It is from Sumatra.  Civit cats roam wild through coffee groves eating only the richest coffee beans.  They digest them.  And then they do what comes naturally enough - they eliminate them from their systems.  These civit-cat-digested-and-eliminated droppings are then collected and, you guessed it, processed into coffee.  Mmmmm, well worth the wait and the $300 a pound - - - so they tell me.

                                                

       Palm Civit - probably has a belly of brewing beans just waiting to make their exit and eventual way into the coffee cup of a fan.

So there you have it.  I will stay on THIS side of the line that divides those with a coffee habit from those with a true obsession.

   

Comments

[Carlyn]

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