I’m not really a coffee-snob. People think that I am. But it’s not true. I just don’t like coffee that doesn’t taste like anything. The first coffee I really liked was some *highly* aromatic, “irish-crème” flavored coffee. My roommates and me drank it like it was keeping us alive. But I don’t think I really understood how coffee worked until I was over the ocean.
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We were flying to Amsterdam, and had an engagement about an hour after we landed. I’d tried to sleep on the flight over, but I couldn’t manage. I’d resisted the alluring, siren smell of coffee as the attendants walked by, over and over and over, thinking that I might still get some sleep. Until finally the captain announced that we would be landing shortly, and the attendants offered one last time.
This wasn’t my first time on an airplane, so my expectations were not set very high. I remember sort of looking out the window as I brought the foam paper cup to my lips. Not the sort of thing you do when you’re about to drink the most amazing coffee you’ve ever had. It was almost like I deliberately wasn’t respecting the coffee. It was “just gonna have to do.” I’ll tell you what it did. It spoiled me for life to coffee of the “regular” variety.
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To this day, I have not been able to reproduce what I enjoyed at every opportunity for the next two weeks. The Dutch drink coffee. Not like a taxi driver. Not like a construction worker, or a campus youth pastor, or even a college student. It isn’t the gluttonous main-line, buzz-keeping, taste-in-my-mouth replenishing coffee drinking that I and many others have sunk to. It was more like the British, and their tea. Except all the time. Anytime. “Let me make us some coffee.” And it’s like they have this national brand: Douwe Egberts. Ooooooh, sweet, sweet, Douwe.
All of this over a papercup, in a coach class international seat; tired, sweaty, needing a cigarette (yup, I used to smoke), and not expecting to experience this coffee.
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For years I struggled to reproduce the cup(s) of coffee that were so graciously served to me over and over during my week in the Netherlands. I even bought some of the same brand and had it mailed home. Must be something in the water. Nothing matched up. I found adequate replacements in grocery store aisles, in the French Roasts, Gourmet Roasts, the Black Silks, and over time they helped me to forget. But then... the Rwanda Blend came along. And literally finished whatever “me” there was left after the Douwe- was completely obliterated by the Rwandan blend, packaged and sold by ... you won’t believe me if I tell you. Maybe I shouldn’t.
I think it’s an espresso roast. I don’t know. All I can say is that it is stuh-wrong. But sooo right. What’s amazing to me, and it wasn’t obvious until we ran OUT of the Rwanda blend, is that it is so clear in its flavor. So... distinct. If coffee were something you could draw, like a square, or a circle, this coffee would have a dark black, .7mm borderline- heavy, around a perfectly black square. Like brand new laser toner black on the page. Not at all like, “I think my desk jet is REALLY close to being a dried up piece of junk in my garage” black square.
That’s the best I can say. When we ran out the 2nd or 3rd time, we went back to “the source” only to discover it had been replaced by some Guatemalan crap. WHAT? WHERE’S MY RWANDAN BLEND?! Gone. Just. Gone. So, we punted. We went back to the grocery store “Gourmet” and went home. You know what? It was different. It was... muddy and dirty. No matter how strong we made it, it just tasted like... mud. I felt like I was straining the substance through my teeth. Like if I could just run it through some cheesecloth, or another paper filter, maybe I could clean up this mess, and salvage it. But no- I look down into the cup, and I see the inappropriateness of this cup in my hands, where greatness once glistened, like a great dark pool- a mutt of coffees. A blend of blends. A mishmash of flavors. A best of what’s around poor excuse for a cuppa. So I wait, for the beautiful, tall woman, with the basket perched on her head, impressed upon the dark, bronzed bag. My Rwandan blend. Come back to me.
