Æther Salon - Coffee! (Unedited Transcript)

[14:02:13]  Zantabraxus : Greetings, Engacia, Ziggy
[14:02:33]  engacia: hello miss zantabraxus
[14:02:53]  Cherie Harcassle: yes roller skating can be tricky, especially if one is experimenting with the boot rockets
[14:02:59]  ZiggyFritz: Helloha, and thank you, Miss Zantabraxus.
[14:03:42]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : Welcome to the new arrivals, we are giving it a few minutes for some stragglers to make it, then I will start. It will be a quieter salon tonight.
[14:06:49]  Baron Klaus Wulfenbach : Shall we begin, Frau Gräfin?
[14:07:16]  Wulfriðe Blitzen   nods
[14:08:20]  Magda Kamenev moves closer, just in case there are samples.
[14:08:40]  Zantabraxus  nudges Magda to the coffee
[14:08:42]  Baron Klaus Wulfenbach  points at the coffee engine in the back
[14:08:45]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : Welcome to the brave few tonight who have come to listen to this talk. There is so much to tell regarding the history of coffee that I don't have time to squeeze it all in, so I shall try and get as much said as possible in the allotted time. Feel free to ask questions along the way. All the following information can be found in various sources, books and articles online if you wish to explore the history of coffee further.
[14:09:17]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : The Arab world is never far from the news today, and people quickly forget it was once renown as a culture of scientists, free thinkers and inventions galore. This includes the three course meal with soup followed by fish or meat, then fruit and nuts. The habit was brought across to Moorish Spain in the 9th Century from Iraq. "Alcohol" derives from the Arabic "al kuhul"... many Arab countries, like Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Morocco, make wines and beers, even though Islam does not permit the drinking of alcohol. And lastly, coffee. Treasured by Muslim mystics for centuries, it was even briefly banned by Muslim nations. As we shall see, it has always courted intrigue and scandal throughout its recorded history
[14:09:59]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : For centuries its origins have been debated over by scholars till recent DNA research by Kew Gardens in London found  the oldest originated in the Ethiopian highlands. More worryingly, they also discovered that the plant has an incredibly narrow gene pool. Although there are 124 known species of coffee, most of the coffee that's grown comes from just two - Arabica and Robusta. This has made it incredibly vulnerable to climate change and fungal or insect attack, with the Arabica strain presently under threat of extinction similar to the sweeter Gros Michel banana, which was almost totally wiped before plantations replaced it with the more robust, but not as sweet Cavendish strain in the 1950's.
[14:10:55]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : Personally, I will always prefer the tastier Arabica over the Robusta, and if you teach your tastebuds to refine themselves to flavours, you too will soon find yourself insisting on the same
[14:11:17]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : There is a third strain, little known, I shall mention that at the end
[14:11:27]  Magda Kamenev  unpacks a camp stove, a coffee mill, a small sack of beans, and a Turkish coffee pot.
[14:11:35]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : The earliest cultivation of coffee was in Yemen and Yemenis gave it the Arabic name qahwa, from which our words coffee and cafe both derive. 'Qahwa' originally meant wine, and Sufi mystics in Yemen used coffee as an aid to concentration and even spiritual intoxication when they chanted the name of Allah. By 1414, it was known in Mecca and in the early 1500s was spreading to Egypt from the Yemeni port of Mocha. It was still associated with Sufis, and a cluster of coffee houses grew up in Cairo around the religious university of the Azhar. They also opened in Syria, especially in the cosmopolitan city of Aleppo, and then in Istanbul, the capital of the vast Ottoman Turkish Empire, in 1554
[14:12:02]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : In Mecca, Cairo and Istanbul attempts were made to ban it by religious authorities. Learned shaykhs discussed whether the effects of coffee were similar to those of alcohol, and some remarked that passing round the coffee pot had something in common with the circulation of a pitcher of wine, a drink forbidden in Islam. Coffee houses were a new institution in which men met together to talk, listen to poets and play games like chess and backgammon. They became a focus for intellectual life and could be seen as an implicit rival to the mosque as a meeting place.
[14:12:27]  engacia unscrews her bottle of 'camp' coffee
[14:12:34]  Wulfriðe Blitzen   grins
[14:12:39]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : Some scholars opined that the coffee house was "even worse than the wine room", and the authorities noted how these places could easily become dens of sedition. However, all attempts at banning coffee failed, even though the death penalty was used during the reign of Murad IV (1623-40). The religious scholars eventually came to a sensible consensus that coffee was, in principle, permissible. Marco Polo mentions it in his travels, and though it was a popular drink in the Arab nations where European traders often travelled to and even partook in the drink to discuss business, it was oddly one of the few things never brought back much into the west and only found in some high end Apothecary suppliers in large port cities. All this was about to change.
[14:13:23]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : Coffee spread to Europe by two routes - from the Ottoman Empire, and by sea from the original coffee port of Mocha. Coffee also arrived in Europe through trade across the Mediterranean and was carried by the Turkish armies as they marched up the Danube. As in the Middle East, the coffee house became a place for men to talk, read, share their opinions on the issues of the day and play games as its popularity slowly spread further and further west.
[14:13:46]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : By the early 17thc Coffee began to be mentioned by English Captains returning from the east as a recommended medicinal drink. At first, coffee had been viewed with suspicion in Europe as a Muslim drink, but around 1600 Pope Clement VIII is reported to have so enjoyed a cup that he said it would be wrong to permit Muslims to monopolise it, and so he declared he would Baptise it. By 1630 it had reached France, and together with tea was drunk more for novelty value. All this changed in 1650.
[14:14:26]  Baron Klaus Wulfenbach : How does one baptise coffee?
[14:14:38]  Magda Kamenev French press?
[14:14:49]  engacia: pour holy water over the beans
[14:14:49]  Cherie Harcassle: dunking it in water
[14:14:56]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : I assume the same way a Jewish person or a Muslim person makes something Kosher or Halal, by saying a prayer over it.
[14:15:17]  Baron Klaus Wulfenbach : I like Fraulein Engacia's idea.
[14:15:22]  Wulfriðe Blitzen laughs
[14:15:32]  Jedburgh Dagger : or dunk a sinner in it
[14:15:32]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : Certainly would like to have been a fly on the wall that day
[14:15:39]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : England was a Protectorate after a long Civil War and  run on Puritan lines. Alcohol was frowned upon. Partying was banned, fun was sinful, plays had been stopped. Even Christmas was outlawed.  London’s coffee craze began in 1652 when Pasqua Rosée, the Greek servant of a coffee-loving British Levant merchant, opened London’s first coffeehouse (or rather, coffee shack) against the stone wall of St Michael’s churchyard in a labyrinth of alleys off Cornhill. Coffee was a smash hit; within a couple of years, Pasqua was selling over 600 dishes of coffee a day to the horror of the local tavern keepers. For anyone who’s ever tried seventeenth-century style coffee, this can come as something of a shock — unless, that is, you like your brew “black as hell, strong as death, sweet as love”, as an old Turkish proverb recommends, and shot through with grit.
[14:16:12]  Magda Kamenev  grins. "I love that phrase."
[14:16:16]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  smiles
[14:16:27]  Jedburgh Dagger : and how I take mine
[14:16:48]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : I prefer mine strong enough to dissolve spoons
[14:16:58]  ZiggyFritz laughs.
[14:17:00]  Zantabraxus : (and tooth enamel)
[14:17:13]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : Saying that to a Barista is always good fun.
[14:17:20]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : It’s not just that our tastebuds have grown more discerning accustomed as we are to silky-smooth Flat Whites; contemporaries found it disgusting too. One early sampler likened it to a “syrup of soot and the essence of old shoes” while others were reminded of oil, ink, soot, mud, damp and shit. Nonetheless, people loved how the “bitter Mohammedan gruel”, as The London Spy described it in 1701, kindled conversations, fired debates, sparked ideas and, as Pasqua himself pointed out in his handbill The Virtue of the Coffee Drink (1652), made one “fit for business” — his stall was a stone’s throw from that great entrepôt of international commerce, the Royal Exchange.
[14:17:29]  Anna Mynx : I actually don't like coffee,although I love the smell of it.
[14:18:04]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : Here's a copy of the world's oldest coffee advertisement
[14:18:06]  Lady Sumoku: Sacrelidge!
[14:18:25]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : See how it cures all ills! It helps you think!  :p
[14:18:35]  ZiggyFritz: Sacrebrew!
[14:18:43]  Cherie Harcassle: giggles
[14:18:48]  Lady Sumoku: It helps me think "why is everything moving so much?"
[14:19:08]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : Remember — until the mid-seventeenth century, most people in England were either slightly — or very — drunk all of the time. Drink London’s fetid river water at your own peril; most people wisely favoured watered-down ale or beer (“small beer”). The arrival of coffee, then, triggered a dawn of sobriety that laid the foundations for truly spectacular economic growth in the decades that followed as people thought clearly for the first time. The stock exchange, insurance industry, and auctioneering: all burst into life in 17th-century coffeehouses — in Jonathan’s, Lloyd’s, and Garraway’s — spawning the credit, security, and markets that facilitated the dramatic expansion of Britain’s network of global trade in Asia, Africa and America.
[14:19:28]  engacia grins wickedly
[14:19:36]  Baron Klaus Wulfenbach  snickers quietly
[14:19:41]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : No respectable women would have been seen dead in a coffeehouse. It wasn’t long before wives became frustrated at the amount of time their husbands were idling away “deposing princes, settling the bounds of kingdoms, and balancing the power of Europe with great justice and impartiality”, as Richard Steele put it in the Tatler, all from the comfort of a fireside bench. In 1674, years of simmering resentment erupted into the volcano of fury that was the Women’s Petition Against Coffee. The fair sex lambasted the “Excessive use of that Newfangled, Abominable, Heathenish Liquor called COFFEE” which, as they saw it, had reduced their virile industrious men into effeminate, babbling, French layabouts. Retaliation was swift and acerbic in the form of the vulgar Men’s Answer to the Women’s Petition Against Coffee, which claimed it was “base adulterate wine” and “muddy ale” that made men impotent. Coffee, in fact, was the Viagra of the day, making “the erection more vigorous, the ejaculation more full, add[ing] a spiritual ascendency to the sperm”.
[14:19:51]  Jimmy Branagh sneaks in silently, unnoticed
[14:20:02]  ZiggyFritz: No he doesn't...
[14:20:26]  engacia laughs
[14:20:34]  Erehwon Texeira  blinks slowly
[14:20:47]  Zantabraxus : Jimmy, Erehwon *smiles*
[14:20:48]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : In London you can actually buy coffee mugs with a copy of the Woman's Petition printed on it...
[14:20:50]  Cherie Harcassle: hehe an ascendency!
[14:21:02]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : By the dawn of the eighteenth century, contemporaries were counting between 1,000 and 8,000 coffeehouses in the capital even if a street survey conducted in 1734 (which excluded unlicensed premises) counted only 551. Even so, Europe had never seen anything like it. Protestant Amsterdam, a rival hub of international trade, could only muster 32 coffeehouses by 1700 and the cluster of coffeehouses in St Mark’s Square in Venice were forbidden from seating more than five customers (presumably to stifle the coalescence of public opinion) whereas North’s, in Cheapside, could happily seat 90 people.
[14:21:35]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : The walls of Don Saltero’s Chelsea coffeehouse were festooned with taxidermy monsters including crocodiles, turtles and rattlesnakes, which local gentlemen scientists like Sir Isaac Newton and Sir Hans Sloane liked to discuss over coffee; at White’s on St James’s Street, famously depicted by Hogarth, rakes would gamble away entire estates and place bets on how long customers had to live, a practice that would eventually grow into the life insurance industry; at Lunt’s in Clerkenwell Green, patrons could sip coffee, have a haircut and enjoy a fiery lecture on the abolition of slavery given by its barber-proprietor John Gale Jones; at John Hogarth’s Latin Coffeehouse, also in Clerkenwell, patrons were encouraged to converse in the Latin tongue at all times (it didn’t last long); at Moll King’s brothel-coffeehouse, depicted by Hogarth, libertines could sober up and peruse a directory of harlots, before being led to the requisite brothel nearby. There was even a floating coffeehouse, the Folly of the Thames, moored outside Somerset House where fops and rakes danced the night away on her rain-spattered deck.
[14:22:10]  Jedburgh Dagger : Wilkes drank coffee
[14:22:13]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : Despite this colourful diversity, early coffeehouses all followed the same blueprint, maximising the interaction between customers and forging a creative, convivial environment. They emerged as smoky candlelit forums for commercial transactions, spirited debate, and the exchange of information, ideas, and lies.
[14:22:35]  engacia: :)
[14:22:51]  Erehwon Texeira : summons a cup of coffee and listens.
[14:22:52]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : Here's an early coffee cup - you may recognise it more as a rice bowl
[14:23:14]  ZiggyFritz: Sounds like my kind of place.
[14:23:42]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : Customers sat around long communal tables strewn with every type of media imaginable listening in to each other's conversations, interjecting whenever they pleased, and reflecting upon the newspapers. Talking to strangers, an alien concept in most coffee shops today, was actively encouraged. Dudley Ryder, a young law student from Hackney and shameless social climber, kept a diary in 1715-16, in which he routinely recalled marching into a coffeehouse, sitting down next to a stranger, and discussing the latest news. Private boxes and booths did begin to appear from the late 1740s but before that it was nigh-on impossible to hold a genuinely private conversation in a coffeehouse.
[14:24:20]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : As each new customer went in, they’d be assailed by cries of “What news have you?” or more formally, “Your servant, sir, what news from Tripoli?” or, if you were in the Latin Coffeehouse, “Quid Novi!” That coffeehouses functioned as post-boxes for many customers reinforced this news-gathering function. Unexpectedly wide-ranging discussions could be twined from a single conversational thread as when, at John’s coffeehouse in 1715, news about the execution of a rebel Jacobite Lord (as recorded by Dudley Ryder) transmogrified into a discourse on “the ease of death by beheading” with one participant telling of an experiment he’d conducted slicing a viper in two and watching in amazement as both ends slithered off in different directions. Was this, as some of the company conjectured, proof of the existence of two consciousnesses?
[14:24:31]  Magda Kamenev is still processing 'a spiritual ascendency to the sperm" ...
[14:24:39]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : laughs
[14:25:08]  engacia: wots so funny about the truth?
[14:25:36]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : The person who wrote it had a sense of humour. Its quite a good read
[14:26:03]  engacia: o
[14:26:35]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : His last comment was 'We are driven to the coffee house to escape the insufferable din of your wagging tongues!'
[14:26:53]  Lady Sumoku gasps
[14:26:56]  Jedburgh Dagger : Boswell's London Diary is another good one
[14:27:09]  Magda Kamenev : She didn't mean you, Lady.
[14:27:15]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : Pfft!
[14:27:33]  Erehwon Texeira : So, London's coffee houses were the Reddit and Hacker News of the day? Tedious boy's clubs?
[14:27:41]  Lady Sumoku: I'm not so sure. :P
[14:27:46]  Erehwon Texeira  grins and sips her coffeee.
[14:27:49]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : In the 17thc there was a habit to pay for things in kind with trading tokens, a hang up from the English Civil War.
[14:28:04]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : An IOU if you will
[14:28:37]  Magda Kamenev adds a touch more sugar to her coffee pot and lights the camp stove.
[14:28:38]  Lady Sumoku: I don't think many on Reddit or the like would stand for actual physical coexistence in the same room.
[14:28:39]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : Some 19thc American tokens use 17thc terms  such as 'good for one drink
[14:29:01]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : Coffee houses spawned newspapers, some which still exist today.  A man would enter the building, pay a penny to a 'Comptroller' who would hand him a bowl, which consisted mostly of Chinese ricebowls in the early days because being so similar in shape to tea cups from China (and not being rice eaters) it was deemed to be for coffee. This shape is still echoes in the modern coffee cup today. The cup was held in a certain way to prevent burn fingers, a saucer was provided so you didn't spill a drop and could slurp the dregs noisily while in conversation. A jar labelled 'TIPS' (To Insure Prompt Service', although some sources dispute this is what it meant) was left at the counter, and a little extra would get you a clay pipe and some tobacco. A serving boy would then come over to fill your cup from an army of coffeepots boiling by the fire. Each house specialised in their own added flavours, and experiments began with filters (its recorded that old socks were used for this purpose, even fish skin...yuk).
[14:29:55]  ZiggyFritz: Yikes!
[14:30:12]  Erehwon Texeira : They could had come to Mondrago and asked us how to make coffee.
[14:30:18]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : Although this father and daughter are drinking tea, they are holding the cups the same way as for coffee and for hot chocolate
[14:31:26]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : As coffee houses encouraged debate on the matters of the day (lets call them a 17thc Facebook) it was common for fights to break out.
[14:31:44]  Stereo Nacht: Interesting... Similar to Japanese'handling of tea cups...
[14:31:58]  Lady Sumoku: And not at all because of a day soaking in caffeine.
[14:32:32]  Zantabraxus  will have to sample coffee in Mondrago again
[14:32:34]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : If you look carefully, while the serving boys carry on as if nothing is happening a rowdy debate is taking place
[14:32:41]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : Someone is throwing coffee at another man
[14:33:04]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : My favourite illustration has a serving girl hitting someone over the head with a ladle
[14:33:10]  Lady Sumoku: Maybe it tastes too much of sock, and not enough of fish.
[14:33:19]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : Sadly I couldn't source a clear version of that one for tonight
[14:33:19]  ZiggyFritz: Lol.
[14:33:35]  Jedburgh Dagger : all depends on whose socks.
[14:33:42]  Magda Kamenev  punctures her tin of boiled milk and pour it in a cup, topping it off with the boiled coffee, grounds and all.
[14:33:44]  Cherie Harcassle: extra fish was a special order, cost extra
[14:34:11]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : I've actually made and served 17thc style coffee using a recipe from the coffee house owned by the most famous mistress of Charles II, Nell Gwyn
[14:34:16]  ZiggyFritz: The scales helped erode the tooth enamel.
[14:34:26]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : She added orange rinds and spices
[14:34:32]  engacia: mmmm
[14:34:46]  Anna Mynx : that actually sounds good.
[14:34:55]  Anna Mynx : how did it taste?
[14:35:01]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : It was boiled for a long time, so a crust formed. Akin to Egyptian Ibrik coffee pots
[14:35:02]  Zantabraxus : It does.
[14:35:06]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : Actually it was very nice
[14:35:32]  Jedburgh Dagger : I have a friend on the reenacting circuit who uses Turkish pots
[14:35:33]  Anna Mynx : do you have a link to the recipe?
[14:35:58]  Erehwon Texeira : mmm, Turkish coffee with milk and caradmon
[14:36:28]  engacia: mm mm  MM

[14:36:52]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : Not on me right now as I had it given to me by someone at the Royal Palaces at Greenwich a few years ago, But its easy to make. Add your favourite coffee mix, and on the top place a teaspoon of orange peel, and a pinch of nutmeg
[14:37:18]  Magda Kamenev sips her coffee, unable to suppress a shudder of delight.
[14:37:23]  Anna Mynx : thank you
[14:37:25]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : It tastes best brewed in a stove pot espresso pot, I found.
[14:37:51]  Jedburgh Dagger : Moka!
[14:37:57]  ZiggyFritz sips his cold, black coffee.
[14:37:59]  engacia: my dad introduced me to heavily milked down, sweetened coffee poured over bread behind my mom's back
[14:38:00]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : Sadly the coffeehouse was not to last in England. By the late 18thc privacy, snobbery and private clubs began to dominate the social scene. Coffeehouses went into decline, some converted to tea, a new cheaper import partly encouraged by the British government who had begun to fight for the domination of the Eastern import markets. Tea, once drunk by the upper classes suddenly became cheaper than coffee, and was easy to buy around the country.
[14:38:33]  engacia: needless to say, my dad became my supplier
[14:38:54]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : Twinings started life as a coffee house - he found tea sold more and founded his now famous company
[14:39:34]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : I hope you can see the details in this next image
[14:39:55]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : Its called 'Tom and Jerry at a Coffee Shop'
[14:40:10]  engacia: :)
[14:40:51]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : This is the Regency period. By now the wealthy dared each other to visit coffee houses for entertainment, as a 'good fight' could always be witnessed between people in a fierce debate
[14:40:56]  Magda Kamenev: I don't see a cat or a mouse in that print.
[14:41:07]  Wulfriðe Blitzen   grins
[14:41:10]  Cherie Harcassle: They look like Darcy and Bingley
[14:41:20]  Stereo Nacht: Heh. Right! :-D
[14:41:27]  Lady Sumoku assumes Tom and Jerry are the two snooty snobs that don't look like they're there for coffee.
[14:41:45]  Erehwon Texeira : Maybe Darcy assumed a name for when he went out and about in London.
[14:42:04]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : Notice something else in the image - Africans
[14:42:37]  Magda Kamenev : Ah!
[14:42:49]  Lady Sumoku thought they were just average Babbagers covered in soot.
[14:42:52]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : In London at this time Africans were free. There was a large community. Sometimes they ended up running coffeehouses by the dockside
[14:42:55]  Jimmy Branagh: Me too!
[14:43:00]  Jedburgh Dagger : it's a Cruikshank!
[14:43:06]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : One is a sweep, but the lady by the fire is African
[14:43:23]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : The other lady cooking crumpets seems to be in mid debate
[14:43:59]  engacia: is that right, eh?
[14:44:04]  Lady Sumoku: Or a ramble, she doesn't look like she's open for discussion.
[14:44:04]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : It depends on who you talk to, some people call her Indian, some just call her 'unwashed'
[14:44:06]  Erehwon Texeira : there seem to be cups and saucers flying in the background
[14:44:20]  Wulfriðe Blitzen   nods
[14:44:51]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : Indeed, after 150 years, people were still fiercely debating politics and the affairs of the day. Like Facebook, others begged to disagree with your opinion
[14:45:09]  ZiggyFritz: Thank you for answering my question about what the lady was toasting, before I asked, Miss Blitzen. Lol.
[14:45:15]  Wulfriðe Blitzen laughs
[14:45:28]  Jedburgh Dagger : harder to block dissenting opinions
[14:45:46]  Lady Sumoku: I thought they were just sanitizing socks for the next batch.
[14:45:55]  Baron Klaus Wulfenbach chuckles
[14:45:59]  ZiggyFritz: Oh my Goddess. Lol.
[14:46:00]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : While the coffee shop declined in England to a few small pockets, it thrived in France and Austria, where it began to become an art form
[14:46:27]  engacia: ye, those brits couldnt hold their coffee
[14:46:29]  Anna Mynx : And thus, Starbucks was born
[14:46:39]  ZiggyFritz: Ewww.
[14:46:40]  Lady Sumoku: Or whelped.
[14:46:43]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : Here's a Parisian coffeehouse, around 1850's.
[14:47:00]  engacia: much more orderly
[14:47:15]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : You can see they are still debating and discussing the news of the day
[14:47:17]  ZiggyFritz: More's the pity.
[14:47:22]  engacia: the french were always more refined
[14:47:23]  Lady Sumoku: The tiny tables were probably so you couldn't stand on them for your arguments.
[14:47:33]  ZiggyFritz: Lol.
[14:47:45]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : The man at the back on the extreme left may have just run out of coffee
[14:47:54]  engacia: lol!  ye!
[14:48:03]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : Or intently reading. Or both
[14:48:04]  Lady Sumoku: Or realized he left his purse at home.
[14:48:06]  Erehwon Texeira : my regular coffee house has some tiny tables so people don't camp with their laptops
[14:48:16]  Cherie Harcassle: “black as hell, strong as death, sweet as love, with a pretty design on top in the cream!"
[14:48:25]  Erehwon Texeira : or just learned that Homestuck was ending.
[14:48:26]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  laughs
[14:48:34]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : My local one puts stars on the cream
[14:48:44]  Cherie Harcassle: pretty!
[14:48:46]  ZiggyFritz: The man far mid right resembles a lion.
[14:48:50]  engacia: sugar stars?
[14:49:08]  Lady Sumoku: Cocoa powder
[14:49:15]  engacia: ah
[14:49:18]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : As it declined, it increased in countries like France and America. It is said the French Revolution began in a Parisian coffee house as the state of the royal family was much debated. In America political change and high taxes resulting in the Boston Teaparty made an entire nation look elsewhere for a new national drink. Coffee found a new niche.
[14:49:40]  Stereo Nacht: Too bad I don't drink coffee (what am I doing here? X-D ) or I might be interested in cocoa on coffee... ;-)
[14:50:10]  Lady Sumoku: You could spoon off the cocoa-foam and leave the coffee leftovers.
[14:50:11]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : Cocoa has an interesting history too. Not sure if you can brave a talk about that so soon after this
[14:50:36]  Stereo Nacht: It gets pricy for just a bit of cocoa...
[14:50:41]  Erehwon Texeira : Now I want to see a version of "Non-Stop" where Hamilton's in the background, with an AeroPress, as Burr laments over his industry.
[14:50:48]  engacia: who cares from which bean we derive our beloved caffeine?
[14:51:30]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : Now this is one for the coffee monsters in the room
[14:51:38]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : A disease-stricken Arabica coffee plant next to a towering Liberica
[14:51:48] : pricey?  cocoa?  at about 6$ for 500 grams of pure powder?
[14:51:56]  engacia: *snorts a line*
[14:52:05]  ZiggyFritz guffaws
[14:52:09]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : Liberica is the little known 'third' strain of coffee. There is a reason we do not see it in coffee houses though.
[14:52:38]  Lady Sumoku: Obviously it is grown from grapefruits.
[14:52:50]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  chuckles
[14:52:52]  ZiggyFritz: Low yield?
[14:53:06]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : Liberica was lost to science
[14:53:13]  engacia: !
[14:53:15]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : But found again by Kew Garden experts
[14:53:20]  engacia: !!
[14:53:23]  ZiggyFritz: Oh my.
[14:53:33]  Stereo Nacht: Oh? What follish mad scientist deprived future generation of a subject of experimentation?
[14:53:34]  Cherie Harcassle: on the third shelf on the far left?
[14:53:52]  engacia: prince charles again?
[14:53:56]  Magda Kamenev : Did the civet cats eat all of the Liberica beans?
[14:54:01]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : They discovered a load of 19thc paperwork by English colonials raving about the bean, so they set out to see a genus in the mountains all over Yemen and Ethiopia
[14:54:01]  Erehwon Texeira : does it make lousy coffee, like robusta?
[14:54:27]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : Just as they were about to give up and list it as extinct, they found it!
[14:54:41]  Anna Mynx  cheers
[14:54:45]  ZiggyFritz: There is no lousy coffee.
[14:54:56]  Lady Sumoku: Just "challenging?"
[14:55:01]  Cherie Harcassle: I trust that they're growing it ?
[14:55:09]  ZiggyFritz: Yay for exploraters!
[14:55:37]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : Well apparently they tried to get it as a replacement for the Arabica when it began to be threatened by the 'leaf rust' the modern plants are also threatened with
[14:56:04]  Wulfriðe Blitzen: When it was tasted, they wrote: "Liberica is a strong grower and a prolific cropper but it just doesn't taste very good, and for many tastes a bit like vegetable soup"
[14:56:22]  ZiggyFritz: I like vegetable soup...
[14:56:41]  engacia: it lacks the kick
[14:56:43]  Stereo Nacht: Heh. That's one I could be conviced to taste... ;-)
[14:56:51]  Cherie Harcassle: not enough fish scales, obviously
[14:56:57]  ZiggyFritz: It kicks the lack.
[14:57:08]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : We may see them experiment with cross breeding, as they are very concerned that with global warming Arabica will vanish. Its a very fussy plant - too warm, it burns, too cold, it doesn't grow beans. It prefers altitude.
[14:57:51]  Lady Sumoku: Altitude without attitude
[14:58:01]  engacia: have you seen the size of commercial greenhouses these days?
[14:58:04]  ZiggyFritz: But with altitude, comes coolness.
[14:58:12]  Magda Kamenev : Let the coffee soar ...
[14:58:19]  Cherie Harcassle: a planty paradox!
[14:58:21]  Stereo Nacht: Bah. Just migrate the plants as temperature changes... Current fields will disappear, others will become available...
[14:58:21]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : People have tried to grow it in their homes, but only succeed with Robustica. But the plant takes years to mature before you can get your first proper crop.
[14:58:46]  engacia: excellent point, miss nacht!
[14:58:50]  Stereo Nacht: Start planting now, then! ;-)
[14:59:04]  Stereo Nacht: Ahem. Sorry.
[14:59:13]  Jimmy Branagh chuckles
[14:59:32]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : Last image for the evening. A lady in Ethiopia serves coffee. Notice the cups
[14:59:46]  Lady Sumoku: Thimbles!
[14:59:49]  ZiggyFritz: More like rice bowls...
[14:59:57]  Jimmy Branagh: That looks tasty
[15:00:02]  Cherie Harcassle: they get a deal on them from China
[15:00:08]  ZiggyFritz: Lol.
[15:00:11]  Stereo Nacht: The cups are nice, but I really like the coffee pot!
[15:00:13]  Magda Kamenev : I really want to do a Ethiopian coffee ceremony one day.
[15:00:19]  ZiggyFritz: All the lead you can choke on.
[15:00:25]  Jimmy Branagh: Oy loikes me coffee black.  Black as midnoight on a moonless noight.
[15:00:27]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : They consume much of their own coffee before it even leaves the country, and are proud of their national drink
[15:01:12]  ZiggyFritz: I like the pot as well, Miss Nacht.
[15:01:13]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : So does nothing taste as good as Arabica? "Coffea stenophylla, sometimes known as the highland coffee of Sierra Leone, is supposed to be incredible," says Schilling. Drunk locally, in 1896 it was described by Kew as one of the two species of coffee which could "prove a formidable rival of the Arabian coffee" - the other was Liberica. Who knows, if the British had opted for C stenophylla instead, what coffee would taste like today.
[15:01:38]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : I added the last from a quote, but I thought it was pertinent
[15:01:51]  Erehwon Texeira : mmm, Ethiopian coffees are so good
[15:02:00]  Stereo Nacht: "Incredible" can mean as much "good" as "atrocious"... ;-)
[15:02:10]  ZiggyFritz: Lol.
[15:02:14]  Lady Sumoku: "Unbelievable"
[15:02:28]  Erehwon Texeira  "Inconceivable!"
[15:02:33]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : I shall end the talk here, but if you have any questions, please ask :)
[15:02:44]  Baron Klaus Wulfenbach applauds
[15:02:45]  Jimmy Branagh applauds
[15:02:47]  Anna Mynx : Thank you for this discussion
[15:02:49]  Magda Kamenev  cheers!
[15:02:52]  Anna Mynx : It was lots of fun
[15:02:54]  Anna Mynx  :)
[15:02:54]  Stereo Nacht:  `*.¸.*´ APPLAUSE `*.¸.*´APPLAUSE `*.¸.*´
[15:02:57]  Magda Kamenev drinks some more coffee.
[15:02:58]  ZiggyFritz: Huzzah!
[15:03:00]  Zantabraxus applauds
[15:03:03]  Cherie Harcassle: Thank you Wulfroe!
[15:03:07]  Jimmy Branagh: I will make a fresh pot
[15:03:28]  Erehwon Texeira : I need to learn more about coffee in North Africa the Mediterranean.
[15:03:29]  ZiggyFritz: Thank you very much. That was entertaining.
[15:03:35]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : Thank you :D I hope you take a new look at the coffee section when you next go shopping. And stick to Arabica, Robusta is bleh
[15:03:40]  engacia: applauds!  very, very informative, interesting and intriguing !!!  thank you, thank you, thank you!!
[15:03:43]  Magda Kamenev : Thank you so much, Mrs. Blitzen!
[15:04:24]  Erehwon Texeira : And don't forget that most of the coffee you drink in Babbage comes through Mondrago.
[15:04:39]  Jimmy Branagh: I have to run.  Thenks Miss Wulfy!  Byee awl!
[15:04:39]  Baron Klaus Wulfenbach : Fraiu Gräfin, which bean is it that is processed by cats' digestive systems?
[15:05:06]  Erehwon Texeira: thank you, Wulfie!
[15:05:06]  Zantabraxus smiles
[15:05:26]  Lady Sumoku: Not exactly a cat.
[15:05:40]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : ah!  Civet cat coffee. Apparently its a secret favourite of Prince Charles, so people get him a pack of it when they want to curry favour with him
[15:05:41]  Lady Sumoku: Kopi Luwak
[15:05:49]  Magda Kamenev laughs. It is rather expensive.
[15:06:12]  Erehwon Texeira : civets are more like raccoons, aren't they?
[15:06:24]  Baron Klaus Wulfenbach : With which bean variety does it start?
[15:07:39]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : I believe its Arabica for the cat. But then, how many people would confess they pick up after jungle cats with a poop collector?
[15:07:48]  Baron Klaus Wulfenbach chuckles
[15:08:08]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : Their stomach acids are supposed to change the chemical signature of the bean. I have never tried it, but a coffee house in London sells it for £10 a cup.
[15:09:25]  Erehwon Texeira : I wish I had time to visit more coffee houses in London
[15:09:49]  Lady Sumoku: Wikipedia says it started because the Dutch landowners wouldn't let the the natives have any coffee beans, saving it all for export.
[15:09:56]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : One of the original 17thc coffee houses still survives - its now...a Starbucks...
[15:10:07]  Erehwon Texeira : all I manged was a Costa on Edgware Road.
[15:10:13]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : Hum, Costo is...eew.
[15:10:30]  Baron Klaus Wulfenbach : That was bad?
[15:10:48]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : Costa is very bitter, they use a bland Robustica
[15:10:49]  Lady Sumoku: Costa is still better than Starbucks!
[15:11:16]  Magda Kamenev grins.
[15:12:25]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : And now in London you can actually visit 'hipster' coffee houses who brew coffee in Victorian Vacuum coffee makers
[15:12:43]  Anna Mynx : wow
[15:13:16]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : The Japanese brew their coffee that way, because they feel it gets the flavour of the bean much more distinctly
[15:13:28]  Magda Kamenev: I look forward to seeing how Starbucks' introduction to Milan goes.
[15:13:44]  Lady Sumoku: It could be the start of WWIII
[15:13:46]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : Heh yes, that's had a few Italians over here scowl in disguste
[15:14:22]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : Let me link you the machine, maybe you have seen them
[15:14:57]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_g-Mmk4ONTC7k645EaQ_dUqIeYw5neWwLNy6Azfer_EuZorbndOQFoU6DtI8Yhr8dI73g2MNwqxWTv227l-jzJ5uug-ggKY0VzT7mPm3tDMOJy9cqxHaluwmV0bT2ZKAYQ_ELuQDRjVvG/s720/e5gtrwqefdsfdsfsdfsdf.jpg
[15:15:00]  Erehwon Texeira: Yes, the vacuum ones! Blue Bottle at the old Mint has them.
[15:15:32]  Magda Kamenev : There's a coffee chain here that displays them, but almost never uses them.
[15:15:38]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : I love watching those ones as they process the coffee, they make a pleasing click
[15:16:16]  Erehwon Texeira : of course, now that summer's here, I'm ready for cold brew!
[15:16:51]  Lady Sumoku: About Kopi Luwak: Tim Carman, food writer for the Washington Post reviewed kopi luwak available to US consumers and concluded "It tasted just like...Folgers. Stale. Lifeless. Petrified dinosaur droppings steeped in bathtub water. I couldn't finish it."
[15:17:06]  Magda Kamenev: Oh ... the Victorian vacuums remind me of Japanese siphon brewing.
[15:17:32]  Lady Sumoku: Same thing.
[15:17:51]  Magda Kamenev : Only more glass, less copper?
[15:17:53]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : Their pots are beginning to catch on in the UK
[15:18:08]  Lady Sumoku: Well same "idea."  Just different setup.
[15:18:30]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : Recently they dared to say coffee now is the most popular drink in the UK. Its so bad that the large tea companies like Twinnings are looking at new ways to sell tea
[15:19:16]  Wulfriðe Blitzen  : So there's now a flood of trendy teas of obscure and odd flavours
[15:19:17]  Baron Klaus Wulfenbach : Tragic.
[15:19:56]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : I have a box of Jasmin and coconut tea, and Jasmin, lavender and chamomile tea for instance.
[15:20:12]  Zantabraxus : Such an awful thing to be inundated with
[15:20:14]  Zantabraxus  grins
[15:20:46]  Wulfriðe Blitzen : I still prefer the original Jasmin tea, with the opening flowers. You place the tea, and a tightly coiled dried pod into a cup, and pour on boiling water. The flower opens slowly.
[15:22:33]  Zantabraxus : Ah, somewhere about I have flowering teas- brewed in a glass teapot to enjoy watching them open as they steep.
[15:22:47]  Wulfriðe Blitzen: They are lovely
[15:22:49]  Erehwon Texeira : yes
[15:23:03]  Erehwon Texeira : and green tea with jasmine is wonderful iced
[15:23:05]  Magda Kamenev : Jasmine is perfectly fine on its own.