Coffee is the second item in this blog’s tag line, yet I feel that I haven’t mentioned it much lately. This is mostly because I believe that, after 10 or so years experimenting, we have settled on a decent routine of 80% pour over, 15% home-made espresso drinks, and 5% drinking out when traveling because bringing the coffee-making aparatus with us was not worth the hassle.

These 5% are killing me, because “take-out” cofee in America is too expensive for what you get.

Note the quotes in “take-out”. In most of the world, a coffee shop is a place where you sit down to get a cup. A waiter or waitress comes in to take your order, and then brings it to your table in a proper ceramic vessel which you sip while sitting down at a table chatting to your friends, reading a book, penning the great Spanish/Greek/Serbian novel or what not. Ordering at the counter and having it poured in a plastic-lined paper cup is gross. Sipping a drink through a platic lid while rushing down the street to get to your next meeting is even worse.

But these are factors tied to culture, economy and lifestyle that may not be modifiable. What can be changed is how Americans view the humble capuccino. Anywhere in Europe, a capuccino is a drink made of crappy beans that you adulter with plenty of milk foam and some cocoa dust on top for added aroma and taste. The cost is around 1.5 to 2 euros, or around $2-2.5. In the US I have been served a mediocre latte with a thin layer of foam, beans that were way too good to be in a capuccino with too much milk and a thicker layer of foam, overroasted beans with luke-warm milk and no foam, and even a concoction poured over ice, all under the name of “capuccino”, served in a plastic cup and meant to be drunk through a tiny hole in its plastic lid, all well over $4 and up to $7 for a bucket of that slop called a “venti capuccino” at an airport Starbucks.

I mean, what are we even doing here?

Yes, if you use your single-origin organic beans from Ethiopia it may take $5 per cup to break even. But the point of the mily espresso drinks is to use up the mediocre over-roasted beans you have to make something people can enjoy. Save you expensive light roasts for pourovers and aeropresses.

On the opposite end, Starbucks, your beans are perfect for a capuccino but what this drink also neads is foam. And good foam requires a tiny modicum of attention from the barista who should not be handling five other orders, most of which are for oversweetened beverages which have nothing to do with coffee.

To be clear, the quality of coffee an American can get is over and above anything available to the average European and I would rather be a coffee enthusiast here than anywhere else in the world. ⊕ OK, maybe Colombia, but that has its own risks. But Americans are yet to experience the affordable capuccino revolution and I hope that it happens in my lifetime.

I did it: I have found my coffee preciousness threshold. Our local coffee shop changed suppliers and only had the beans depicted below to offer. The very helpful barista even offered to pack me a bag of their own in-house coffee beans, which I declined but should have taken as the warning it was.

Because the beans were… fine. For a light roast, and particularly for the price. Perhaps even on par with Bird Rock, though I will need to make more than one pot for a real test. But everything about this coffee was over-designed, from the embossed packaging to the transparent plastic bag holding the beans to the “tasting notes” insert tucked into the outside pocket. And just look at that website (and the price)!

I am in fact embarrassed for buying it. Who is this for, and do they also own a Juicero? I choose beer over wine because I am repelled by the (usually faux) sophistication of the wine connoisseurs. I’d better reign in my coffee enthusiasm or else switch to tea.

This espresso macchiato at the Regina Palace Hotel in Stresa was the best cup of coffee I have had outside of home since, well, since the last time I’ve been to Italy.

Stresa is a tiny town just north of Milan, one of many dotting Lake Maggiore. It was for a 3-day conference with much work to do, but some observations could still be had.

• Do not rely on Uber, or any other ride share service for that matter. Taxi drivers are your friends. I am sure ride sharing is fine in Milan, but three drivers canceled my airport pickup shortly after accepting, when they saw I requested a trip to Stresa. This is just 45 minutes from Milan Malpensa, not exactly the end of the world, and the taxi driver had no issues taking me there.
• Actually, the third Uber driver never canceled: he asked me to cancel it myself as he was “having psychological problems”. I took a screenshot and wished him the best.
• I thought I would have an easier time scheduling an Uber ride back to the airport, but no. 8 hours before the 4am drive to the airport a driver was still not assigned. I canceled it and ask a cab driver if he could pick me up. He couldn’t, but a friend of his did, arriving at the hotel right on time.
• I knew I made the right decision when another hotel guest asked me if we could share the ride as I was getting into the car — his scheduled 4am Uber never showed up. So, I will repeat: skip ride sharing and take the taxi (or better yet the train, if not pressed for time or traveling before 6am).
• I stayed in a small hotel with the conference in a much bigger one close by, but both were, I realized, my favorite type of place: opulent turn-of-the century institutions with large marble staircases, very small bathrooms, somewhat musty hallways, and impeccable service. The Fairmont would be the closes US equivalent, though those are slightly more modern and at a lower level of service. In Serbia it is Hotel Moskva.
• The coffee was extraordinary at any place I had it, without the fussiness of r/espresso and other places which insist on recently-roasted premium beans and microgram scales for your shot. And not a paper cup in sight.
• Also: no coffee maker in the hotel room. High standards!
• This is a general recommendation for traveling outside of the US, not about Stresa in general, but never ever accept automatic conversion from local currency to USD when paying by car or withdrawing money at the ATM. Choose local currency and trust that the US bank will take a smaller cut than the locals… for the time being.
• The town was beautiful even with constant downpour, and I will look for excuses to come back.

Day 2 in Istanbul, finding out that the coffee we had been ordering from Amazon for years started out within walking distance of Hagia Sophia.

☕️ If there were Michelin stars for coffee shops, San Diego’s Bird Rock would deserve all three: worth booking the hotel away from the venue just to be close to it for your first morning cup. Outstanding.

Happy Twin Peaks Day, everyone! To go with your morning coffee and cherry pie, here is an interview with the Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino on how David Lynch’s masterpiece influenced her own show.

Three key ingredients for well-being: a good cup of coffee, a clear view of the outside trees, a trusted mouse-catcher.

The foliage may not be the prettiest, but the that cherry is a thing of beauty. At Green World Coffee Farm on Oahu last October.

☕️ Over the last two decades we have gone from Turkish, to AeroPress, to moka pots, and even to a full-fledged espresso machine. But for the last few years our default way to make coffee has been the humble pour-over.

A friend asked about the specifics so I made a quick video.