The Quest for the Perfect Cup of Coffee

I’ve been drinking, tasting, and exploring coffee since I was twelve years old. I love coffee. I’ve been through all those periods when coffee was supposed to be bad for a person. I’ve just kept on drinking my high-test full caffeine coffee. I enjoy my last cup of the day at around 11:00, but I do make it café-au-lait by cutting it with an equal amount of milk. Recently, some researchers discovered that six to eight cups of coffee a day can halt the progress of multiple sclerosis. Who knew?

The best cup of coffee I ever tasted I enjoyed on November 22, 1963. I remember the date because it was my first wedding anniversary and the day Kennedy was shot. We had reservations at Trader Vic’s and thought about cancelling but didn’t. The restaurant was nearly empty and we had excellent service. Trader Vic’s later got a bad reputation and the Tiki figures outside were kind of cheesy, but at the time it was one of the best restaurants in Washington. The food was prepared in the French manner and excellently done. My after-dinner coffee was served in a French press pot. I had never tasted anything so good, and I’ve been trying to duplicate that rich coffee taste with chocolate overtones ever since. It was probably Kona, grown on the Kona coast of the big island of Hawaii.

At that time I was still using a percolator. I very shortly changed to a Chemex pot, a filter system that has gone out of fashion, to be replaced by the easier-to-use Melitta filter system.

My next move was to try various coffees. Most of the really good coffees are grown on high volcanic islands. Blue Mountain, which isn’t to my taste, is grown on Jamaica. There are other Caribbean coffees as well. I know the Brazilians would argue, but don’t pay them any mind.

I settled on coffees grown on the volcanic islands of Indonesian and other southeast Asian islands. The For a while I bought full city roast Sumatra Mandheling. Mandheling is Arabica variety, full flavored with a rich chocolate undertone. When the store where I shopped changed suppliers, the Sumatra they offered wasn’t Mandheling, it was only Robusta variety, and was over-roasted. There was no longer any point in spending the extra money. I went back to my old standard Mocha Java.

The same islands also produce the world’s costliest coffee. The berries are eaten by a civet, and excreted. The beans are harvested, lightly roasted, and sold for an exorbitant amount of money. The digestive enzymes of the civet neutralize some of the acids and the bitterness, and the result is, they tell me, a coffee of unsurpassed depth and richness of flavor. I’ve never tasted it. I would have to hit the lottery before I’d spend that much for coffee.

I usually like filtered coffee, but I also like Turkish coffee. It’s made by putting powdered coffee into the tiny cup (or pot) and filling it with boiling water. It’s heavily sweetened. The drinker lets the foam settle, then drinks it in tiny sips. Don’t drink the sludge on the bottom. I don’t like espresso, probably because it is always made with over-roasted beans.

In my explorations and experimentations, I may have matched that great coffee of 1963. I’ve made coffee from beans of many countries, both varieties, and varied roasts. I’ve drunk many coffees in many places. It may be that the circumstances and my inexperience enhanced the impact 45 years ago, and I may never actually have that rush again. I still yearn to match that cup of Kona at Trader Vic’s.

(c) 2008 Katherine DeWitt