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Rachel Young, Staff Writer
My first taste of coffee was from my grandfather's cup. He took it rich, with two plastic cups of half and half and two rounded spoonfuls of sugar. When we were out on the town alone, with no mother to arch a disapproving eyebrow, he poured a sip of after dinner coffee in his saucer to cool, and I sucked it in eagerly, making forbidden slurping sounds. The coffee was warm and adult against my nine-year-old tongue. My Shirley Temple, so perky and pink with its girly maraschino cherry, no longer seemed appealing.
I dared to try espresso at 17. My mid-sized Missouri town lacked a sophisticated coffee spot, so my first shot came from an artsy St. Louis theatre. I grimaced as I sipped the sludge from an oversized styrofoam cup, popping Junior Mints all the while to cut the bitterness. Though I developed a preference for good coffee in college, I steered clear of straight espresso. The acrid taste of my first espresso lingered in the back of my throat.
In Italy, though, I realized I'd have to quickly get over my espresso aversion. Steamed milk couldn't save me; Italians only drank cappuccino with their morning cornetto. Ordering one past 10 a.m. lumped me with the uncouth tourists. Caffe american? That dishwater? Forget it. In Italy, coffee was espresso -- strong and straight.
And so, I thought, when in Rome you better make do. My first Italian espresso was at a bar in Bologna, where a tuxedoed barista expertly pulled me a tiny, steaming cup. I shirked the tiny spoonfuls of raw sugar I saw business-like Italians heaping in their demitasse cups, held my nose, and took a sip. It was creamy, luscious and rich, nothing like the sludge I'd had in the United States.
From that moment on, I was an expresso worshipper, a mild fanatic. I considered it my duty to drink as many as possible before Italy and I were parted. The sudden whoosh of steam from the espresso machine became like music, and my neighborhood barista, with his natty black vest and slicked-back hair, was the hero who doled out my fix.
Just picturing the swirl of foam on the top of a real Italian espresso can send me into spasms of memory, like Proust sniffing a madeline. That creamy brown top layer is, to me, what separates a worthy espresso from a pale, foreign imitation. After sneaking looks at real Italians downing their morning infusions, I developed the habit of savoring the first few sips then downing the rest of my cup like a shot. All the better for the caffeine to quickly reach your bloodstream. The subsequent heart palpitations, racing thoughts and anxious energy felt strangely like love.
According the web site for Caffe Mauro, an Italian company that sells packaged espresso, a fleet from the Venice Republic first brought Turkish coffee to Italy in 1615. Coffee was first used only as a medicine, but it later gained popularity as a fashionable drink. The Venetian doges, worried this new addiction would promote public immorality, placed a limit on new cafes. Still, the coffee habit spread across Europe, and by the mid-1700s, people from Paris to Rome were enjoying cups with their conversation.
Caffe Mauro invites coffee lovers to submit poems celebrating espresso culture. The six best musings have been posted at their web site and there's still more room for espresso-inspired work. Sit down with the best coffee your city can provide and summon up your best espresso-fueled image. There's poetry in those demitasse cups, from the first hallowed sip to the last smudge of grounds.
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