Anyhow, here is something about my love for coffee.
Coffee I Never Tasted but Loved
My memories are flavored with the pungent smells of coffee: percolated, brewed, fresh ground, Maxwell House (sometimes better); the morning necessities, the afternoon refreshments, the nighttime rituals; the common liquid which gathered family and friends together.
In Grandma’s kitchen the coffee and the memories percolated as one and produced a blend so strong it brought out tears and laughter. In restaurants, cafeterias and diners the family meals were never complete – were never left – without the coffee after.
In our home the coffee was brewed and served till well into the night, and attracted many guests like moths to aromatic flames: the teenage boys who gathered at the table Friday evenings; the neighbor playing rummy always staying for one more game.
There were years and years of coffee en-scenting the walls, the skin, the brain; creating sense memories so deeply steeped and infused and scorched on the mind like the scorching on a pot left hot too long, so strongly pressed from the best grounds ground from the best beans, the best moments, moments of the coffee kind.
2 comments:
I have a vivid memory from a day in my childhood. I assume it was late spring because of the way the light was coming into the house.
Early in the morning, I woke to hear the sound of the coffee grinder in the kitchen -- this being pre-espresso-stand days, it was the old wooden hand-crank grinder with the little drawer at the bottom of the base that held the treasured ground coffee. And then the wonderful, rich, olfactory-stimulating coffee smell as the old percolater started to work on the coffee. Then the smell of bacon...
and I was up and in the kitchen.
No, I didn't get to drink coffee in those days, but just the smell transported me. Still does, and now I even like the taste. Sometimes.
Nice memory Stidmama. Thanks!
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