Coffee mornings

Ok ok it is a cliche, but coffee truly is a gift of the gods.

Or, for those mythical goats in the Middle East who ate coffee beans, thereby telling the bored-out-of-his-mind shepherd that here was something to wake him up, a gift of the goats.

I truly like coffee, and in the Northwest coffee is a culture. I have been told that coffee is so popular due to all the Scandinavians who settled here, bringing coffee and the coffee klatch with them, sharing cardamom scented rolls with syrupy black brew. I don't see it that way. I think it is mass marketing and a cunning plan.

Starbucks may be planning to take over the world, but it is the coffee houses around the campuses here that are the nexus of caffeine culture. When I meet my daughter at yes, Starbucks, the orders are complicated. "I will have a tall single, skinny soy shot with amaretto flavoring." " double tall, non fat" or, "caramel with extra cream, to go with nutmeg." I kid you not, the orders are as complex as any bar drink.

In Ottoman Turkey the official coffee sniffers would walk the neighborhoods sniffing out coffee makers and taxing them. If they refused, the next time the makers were sewn into sacks and thrown into the Bosporus. The sultan tried to ban coffee houses for it was there that students would gather and plot sedition. But eventually, realizing a money maker, and improved business hours, he relented. Maybe Starbucks is a reincarnation. What if the colonists had drunk coffee not tea? Would we have the Boston Latte Party?

My sister in law, visiting this summer, was amazed at the number of drive-throughs in quiet Sisters, eastern Oregon. What in the world do THEY have to hurry about, she asked. I am from San Diego! And so, the drive through proliferate, I have my faves. Cafe Roma, Blues Brothers, Cafe A Latte, and my favorite non sequitur at the beach, a neon sign advertising in one breathless non spaced sign: CrabCocktailEspressos.

My students drag into honors class at 8:15, midnight as far as an eighteen year old can tell. They have flip flops on, no accounting for taste or weather. They wear parkas, and carry lattes. I think I will just give up and have them bring me one.

But back to true coffee. The Turks have a saying, "coffee should be sweet as love, strong as friendship, and black as death." It is a little death each day, waking up and staggering to the French press. Or Melitta. Or, god forbid, Mr. Coffee. If it is "sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care", a latte makes full sweaters. I put on the water, walk the dogs, check the e mail, and then plunge down the press. That plunge is very satisfying, purging the water, a nice little swoosh sound as the disk reaches the bottom, scrapes the glass sides of the carafe, and I can smell my nice thick dark French roast. I walk to my window, overlooking a berm against the forested hill, covered in rhododendrons, ferns, Doug firs and mossy trunks of oaks. My coffee steams, and the foggy landscape clears for a minute like Brigadoon in the musical.

My husband used to make me coffee in the morning, and often hand me one in the shower. Heaven. And a memento that he cared, and noticed. I got used to making my own coffee as things waned, and make my own now. I am independent, I can buy myself perfume, my own jewelry, and my own coffee. But I do miss so much that hand reaching into my steamy foggy shower with a coffee mug. This descriptor must be one of my must haves in my search for a coffee companion.

Off to work, with coffee mug in hand, thank goodness for cup holders!