I was thinking about coffee yesterday – when I was writing here, I think about coffee quite a lot of the time every day in actual fact! Here is something I wrote several years ago:
When I was little we had coffee at breakfast time, made in a percolator with coffee grounds cut with chicory, or we had a milky drink made with Camp Coffee, a sort of chicory essence. Camp Coffee was first made over a hundred and forty years ago, but I think these days it is mostly used for flavouring such desserts and cakes. There are far more options now; decent instant coffees and all sorts of machines to make different types of ‘real’ coffee.
These days if you go out for a coffee the amount of choice is almost baffling, and you here discussions and arguments about what exactly a ‘corto’ is or a ‘flat white’. The first of these new styles of coffee that I remember was a cappuccino, which comes from the Italian word for hood; in fact there was an order of monks called Capuchin because they have hoods. The word in terms of coffee started in about the 1930’s
In Italy, a coffee was being called cappuccino 1930’s, but who knows when that style of coffee was first made, let alone first sold! There was something similar being sold in coffee shops in Vienna several centuries earlier, and some recipes included cream, eggs, sugar and spice. This reminds me a little of chair, which is milky and spicy and sweet. However, technology is what changed everything; now we have a whole range of coffee machines which can produce coffee in all different forms, to suit any taste or style.
A friend rang me tonight to arrange to meet for a coffee tomorrow… no doubt we will meet in our favourite place, and no doubt I will have an Americano, but while I stand and wait for my order I will look at all the different things on offer, and marvel at the variety!
My image is of a well known coffee chain, our favourite place is elsewhere and unfortuantley I have no photos!
Lois Elsden 
Dear Lois,
thanks a lot for your explanation about the background of ‘cappuccino’.
Especially for Dina, a fine coffee is essential in the morning. We make our coffee in a percolator with coffee powder, cinnamon and cardamom. We drink it with a little bit of milk in it and Dina needs it very hot.
Enjoy your coffee
The Fab Four of Cey
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
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Dear Fab Four, my parents always made coffee in a percolator when we were children – it was always the welcome smell of breakfast! Maybe I will be inspired by you and buy another one – and I love the idea of cardamom! I’m not fond of cinnamon though, so I would have to leave that out. Like Dina, I have my coffee very hot, so have to drink it quickly 🙂
When I have some tomorrow I will think of you, and raise my cup!
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Dear Lois,
enjoy your coffee. We just had ours.
Have a happy weekend
The Fab Four of Cley
🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
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I still love coffee made in a percolator, it reminds me of home I guess.
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I just mentioned to some other friends that I might buy myself a percolator – haven’t had perked coffee since I was a child!
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If I didn’t already have about six different coffee pots (drip, electric drip, vacuum, French press…) I would probably buy one too!
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If I had a friend who wanted a coffee then I would invite her round to mine and put the kettle on. Much cheaper option (except for the price of electricity of course).
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There’s nothing like sitting with friends and drinking coffee – especially if they’ve made it!
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