Night thoughts on coffee

This week I seem to be going through one of my intermittent bouts of insomnia.  It’s something that I get from time to time for no discernible reason and after having it for a few days I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.  Many friends and acquaintances on hearing of my sleep deprivation are quick to offer impromptu counselling sessions – what’s on your mind, any problems, changes in diet- in an attempt to get to the bottom of the problem.  I prefer to not worry about it figuring that I have to sleep at some point and you know I can use the extra hours to do something useful like write an overdue blog entry.    My only worry about these little episodes is just how much coffee I am going to get through and what is this going to do for my already significant addiction?

I’ve been a coffee drinker since I was a child – family have reminded me countless times of me ordering a coffee as a five year old when all my siblings were drinking hot chocolate.  For as long as I can remember my morning ritual has been to wake up drag myself out of bed, make a moka (a stove top coffee maker) of coffee before attending to anything else.  So great is my love for the buzzy black liquid that I would give up every other beverage (yes including all alcohol) before I would give up coffee.  After so many years of consumption I have to admit that I’m am addict.  If I don’t get my hit in the morning I become listless, get a raging headache and was once horrified to note an employee warning others that it’s evil Raji on a day that I had failed to get my morning shot.

I sometimes think that my leaving the UK really was just a journey to find good coffee – the English really can’t do coffee (I say English as from my experience the coffee in Scotland is pretty darn good.)  My youth was a nightmare of freeze dried instant horror that whatever it is cannot be called coffee.  More recently the country has exploded in Starbucks and the like which is uniformly horrid, over roasted, bitter and watery.  

My adopted home prides itself on its coffee but when I mention Aussie coffee culture to the Italians they look at me as if I’ve been sipping flat whites on the Moon.  The difference as I see it is this:  like Australia coffee in Italy is a lifestyle.  It seems as if everyone begins and punctuates the day with one but what it isn’t is a status symbol.  Aussie cities are renowned for the types of coffee they drink – Melbourne is a flat white town, Sydney the latte while Brisbane is the frivolous cappuccino – oh you drink a tall espresso? Well you’re an inner Melbourne hipster then – and heaven forbid you order the wrong type in the more effete urban centres.  The only coffee faux pas you could make here is to ask for a cappuccino past breakfast.  Baristas have been elevated to a status once reserved for celebrity chefs with anger management issues.  The modern trend has been for the increasing scientification (yes made up word but I can’t think of the real one) of coffee – the Italians go nuts when I describe cold filter or syphon coffee and they really lose it when I tell them about places in Melbourne who will analyse your palate and recommend a single source coffee that matches your taste profile – yes that’s you sensory lab – no wonder Starbucks was a dismal failure.

Here, as the Italians tell me coffee is just coffee, like everything else the Italians consume the emphasis is on quality but it’s not over thought.  You may always buy your favourite brand at the supermarket but on the street you’re not going to avoid a bar because it serves Lavazza and not Illy.  What I’m enjoying about Italian coffee culture is the whole new array of ways to mainline caffeine.  In addition to all the regular cappuccinos (served without chocolate of course,) espressos, macchiatos, etc the Italians have a host of other serving methods – of late given the temperatures I’ve been enjoying cafe freddo (iced espresso,) coffee granitas, coffee gelato but my current discovery and obsession is cafe affogatto – a shot of espresso serves over a ball of vanilla ice cream – it sounds so very wrong but trust me it’s a winner.  The only coffee item I have turned my nose up at is coffee yogurt which really is foul.    

When I came to Italy I had got my addiction down to one a day (admittedly that one was a pint) but over the course of the year my consumption has steadily increased.  There’s my morning coffee, the mid morning between lessons one, the meeting a friend one, the it’s six o’clock and I’ve another three hours of lessons to go one and now there’s the I’m really tired but need to stay awake ones.  If I mentioned my coffee consumption to a doctor in Australia I’m sure the reaction would be – are you crazy? But here six or seven shots a day don’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary – makes you wonder if health advice has more to do with national characteristics than scientific research.  As I write this in my fourth night of interrupted sleep I hope it’s not too long before sleep reasserts itself and I can get my coffee consumption back under control.

Ironically this is being written on tea – made in a pot of course.