God in A Cup of Coffee

In late 2007 and early 2008 as I was writing “God in a Cup,” the Ethiopian coffee industry experienced what amounted to a market collapse.  Vast amounts of coffee that had been purchased by buyers in the US, Europe and Asia were never shipped out of Ethiopia or were shipped many months late after the beans had lost much of their lovely fragrance, taste and freshness.  These events are dramatically described in my book.

In 2008 sellers and buyers scrambled to put the broken market back together. 

Now the Ethiopian government is in effect re-nationalizing its coffee industry–coffee is Ethiopia’s most important export.  The re-nationalization appears to be slamming the door on specialty buyers who in recent years have roamed Ethiopia in search of small lots of super high quality coffee from small Ethiopian farms and cooperatives for which they have paid $3 a pound and up.

Under the new system private sellers are banned.    These “privates” have had their licenses to operate taken from them.  They are no longer legally allowed to  buy, process and market small lots of  super expensive coffee.

Instead, the  government has created a  controlled commodities market on which virtually all Ethiopian coffee will be sold.  (Some  large, government-friendly cooperatives will apparently continue to have some autonomy.) Under the new rules, coffees from 24 different geographic areas will be aggregated, cupped and graded together.   All coffees from, say, Yirgacheffe Area A, Yirgacheffe Area B, Harar and so forth will be slotted  into one of nine different quality grades and sold together.  Which means that the farmers working in particular cooperatives will no longer be able to increase their earnings by adopting improved agricultural practices and growing better coffee.

This notion–that farmers who work harder and produce better coffee ought to be paid more is the core notion of the specialty coffee industry.  Everything else that specialty buyers and roasters are attempting to accomplish flows from this basic premise.

Instead of super high prices for a small number of coffee farmers, the Ethiopian government has decided to focus on gaining higher prices for all its coffee.  A similar strategy was adopted some years ago by the Colombians: coffee buyers tell me this strategy resulted in the lowering of standards at the very top of Colombian coffee quality pyramid, but it has significantly raised the price of the mass of Colombian coffee.  Since Ethiopia has something like one million coffee farmers, this strategy makes a certain sense.  But it it fails to address the most fundamental issue besetting Ethiopian coffee farmers: low productivity.  When coffee is aggregated and sold in mass lots, it is hard to identify factors that will motivate farmers and cooperatives to improve agricultural practices –thereby increasing productivity.  Perhaps this will come.

New York Times science writer Gina Kolata writes about the benefits of caffeine on the performance of athletes competing in many  different sports.

Check out her article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/health/nutrition/26best.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=caffeine&st=cse

Baltimore coffee guy, cafe owner (Spro) and  barista-trainer  Jay Caragay and I are going to be tasting coffee and talking coffee from 1 to 2pm today with Dan Rodderick at WYPR, Baltimore’s public radio station. (88.1 FM in Baltimore.)

If you miss the show, you can download the podcast– Dan Rodderick, March 26.   It should be fun.  Jay can be counted on being opinionated, contentious, smart as hell and lots of fun.  Me, well, I love to talk and love doing radio!

On Saturday April 25th, at 11 AM, Jay and I will reprise our appearance at his cafe, Spro, which is located in the Towson Maryland Public Library.

Here’s the video of the coffee talk I gave when I visited Google’s coffee club in Santa Monica.

I am back after a two month blog hiatus.  Time off for all sorts of events, personal and professional, the biggest of which was hip surgery:  Three weeks ago after three years of hip pain during which, hoping to avoid surgery, I  subjected myself to virtually every alternative treatment known to man, I had my left hip replaced.  The surgery went brilliantly.  My incision is a mere 3.5 inches long and my forehead is adorned with stars for being an A-plus patient–true, true, true, I am considerably younger and more fit than the average hip patient!  Still, three weeks out I can walk close to a half mile with a cane, and I am looking forward to resuming swimming in a week or two, yoga  in six weeks, and hiking in New England this summer. Oh, yes and walking in the city–in recent months walking on hard city pavement has been  torture.

Which is not to say that the past three weeks haven’t had their challenges.   What I feared was big pain.  What I got was soreness, low energy and the blah blah blah feeling that I was trapped in my house (not allowed to drive)  where  like Rapunzel in the tower, I would forever be isolated, removed and lonely  in my prison while all the other children were allowed to go outside and play.   OK, I am a bit melodramatic, but that’s my nature.

And then yesterday, my energy –my real, vital, life loving energy started to pour back into my body and the most amazing thing happened:  I started to think about food.  Food I would like to eat.  Food I would like to cook. Lying in bed last night, I started to think about Sunday brunch.  How about home fries with chicken sausage, scrambled eggs with roasted  grape tomatoes and avocado, and a citrus salad with fresh fennel and roasted olives?  Hmmmm, I wish I were eating that meal right now.

Coffee too returned as object of passion.  Coffee under normal conditions is one of my favorite foods.  For three weeks following my surgery, the contents of my coffee cupboard were dwindling and I couldn’t rouse myself to order a fresh supply online.  John brought some coffee back from Wholefoods –a Kenyan from Allegro — not bad, pretty good, but not sparkling and alive and morning-transforming like the coffees I regularly order from Counter Culture, Intelligentsia and Stumptown. 

I hadn’t ordered for a while from CC, so yesterday, vaguely aware of the symbolic significance of my act, I went on the CC website and ordered three Latin American coffees –a microlot from a farmer named Ariel Payjoy’s  who is part of the La Golindrina  in Colombia.  A 100 percent Bourbon from Aida Batlle’s Finca Mauritania in El Salvador.  And farmer Yefri Pintado microlot from Valle del Santuario in San Ignacio –I think this is my first Peruvian microlot. 

I am counting the hours until these coffees arrive.  And if truth be told:  I am counting the hours until lunch today.  And dinner tonight.  And did I tell you about the champagne mango I just skinned and ate standing at the kitchen sink.  Did I tell you how the juice ran down my arm and the flesh of the fruit was succulent and smoky redolent of earth and sex. I am hungry.  I am well.  I am back.

John and I made a stop last evening at our favorite wine store, MacArthur  Liquors (aka Addies) on MacArthur Boulevard in Washington, DC. Great store at every price point.

You wouldn’t have believed the buzz in the store: it was like Christmas Eve and New Years Eve wrapped up in  chocolate truffles and fois gras.  Customers were buying Proseco and Cava and Champagne and expensive Burgundies and buying and shopping an laughing with that peculiar abandon and disregard of cost that glamourous weddings and the winter holidays induce.  (We were not exempt from this mood, although our purchases ran more in the direction of Chile than France.)

Washington is gearing up for the best party ever.  Restaurants are full.  They were full last night–6 days before the inauguration!  You can’t find a parking space.  There was a line out the door at Black Salt, the terrific fish joint adjacent to MacArthur Liquor.  Out of town guests have arrived!  And people are dining and partying.   Its damned cold outside, but here in sober Washington, it is as if an ocean of  champagne bubbles have been released into the the winter air.

WOW!

There has been a little discussion going on this morning on FACEBOOK about caffeine-yes, I am outed as someone who has discovered writing on walls as  a new better way to procrastinate.

One Facebook “friend” (a competitive barista, I think) commented that he had just cleared all the caffeine out of his system in time to start over-consuming again.

I wrote that I found managing the uppers and the downers to be one of this coffee lovers key tasks.  For me, the downer of choice is wine, and while I am generally pretty moderate in my consumption, on a recent occasion I found myself in the late afternoon (OK this was after a medical appointment discussing treatments for my bum hip) so (as the shrinks say) “disregulated” that I had to drink coffee and wine simultaneously.  Coffee to buck me up.  Wine to calm me down.  Luckily this state of “disregulation” came when my husband and I were near Old Town Alexandria in Northern Virginia, very close to Grape & Bean.   Not only could I drink wine and coffee at the same time, I could drink great coffee (counter Culture Kuta) and great wine at the same time.  Which was very wonderful.  By the time I had ingested one coffee, one glass of sauvignon blanc and one glass of pinot noir, plus a  plate of world class charcuterie, my inner state had been sufficiently re-regulated and we could drive on!

Those who share my interest in the peculiar and wonderful effects of caffeine-the-drug, might be interested in this bit of research sent to me by my book editor at Wiley, Linda Ingroia delineating what American cities consume the most and the least caffeine.

Note, however, that the researchers when describing overall useage at the top of the story have not differentiated coffee/caffeine from  cola/caffeine.  Later in the story, they break out different forms of caffeine, telling who drinks the most/where.

FYI, For the second year in a row, residents of Seattle ingest the most caffeine in the form of coffee.   Not too surprising given the city’s coffee-centricity and its depression-inducing climate.

The link to this story seems to have in its own way become “disregulated,” so I have resorted to old fashion cut and paste technology:

Go make another cup of coffee and read:

*******
HealthSaver Caffeinated Cities Survey Reveals Most, Least Caffeinated Cities in Nation. (PRNewsFoto/HealthSaver)

NORWALK, CT UNITED STATES

NORWALK, Conn., Jan. 13 /PRNewswire/ — The second annual HealthSaver Caffeinated Cities Survey, commissioned by HealthSaver, a national emerging health care discount service, found that the most caffeinated city in the country is Tampa, followed by Seattle, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090113/NY58247 )

The least caffeinated cities are Riverside/San Bernardino, followed closely by Atlanta, San Diego, Minneapolis/St. Paul and Dallas. The survey considered numerous caffeine sources, including coffee, tea, sodas, energy drinks, chocolate, pain relievers and caffeine pills.

Considering caffeinated coffee consumption alone, it was no surprise that Seattle ranked No. 1 nationwide for the second consecutive year.

The HealthSaver 2008 Caffeinated Cities Survey, released today, was conducted to determine the caffeine consumption habits and attitudes of consumers across the U.S., and to learn more about cultural views and health benefits of this morning pick-me-up, afternoon alert booster and late-night indulgence.

“With the advent of rich, high-end coffees, soaring popularity of energy drinks and national fascination with green tea, our HealthSaver Caffeinated Cities Survey has brewed up some very interesting trends, findings and results,” said Brad Eggleston, vice president of HealthSaver. “This groundbreaking research is an important tool to help educate about the health benefits of moderate caffeine consumption in the United States.”

The health benefits of caffeine are plentiful and well-documented in numerous studies in recent years. Coffee and tea, in particular, have emerged as good health food sources that can lower the risk of diabetes, heart disease, Parkinson’s disease, colon cancer, and cirrhosis of the liver, as well as lift your mood, treat headaches and even lower risk of cavities. Caffeine also enhances athleticism, endurance and performance, according to health care experts.

“Even though at one time coffee was considered harmful to your health, at this point there is no compelling research to indicate that, in fact, is true,” said Dr. Peter R. Martin, Professor of Psychiatry and Pharmacology and the Director of the Institute of Coffee Studies, Vanderbilt School of Medicine. “Newer studies actually prove coffee in moderation is good for one’s health.”

Here’s the buzz on the most and least wired cities:
Most Caffeinated Cities

2008                                  2007
1.  Tampa                             1.  Chicago
2.  Seattle                           2.  Tampa
3.  Chicago                           3.  Miami
4.  New York                          4.  Phoenix
5.  Los Angeles                       5.  Atlanta

Least Caffeinated Cities

2008                                  2007
1.  Riverside/San Bernardino          1.  San Francisco
2.  Atlanta                           2.  Philadelphia
3.  San Diego                         3.  New York
4.  Minneapolis/St. Paul              4.  Detroit
5.  Dallas                            5.  Baltimore

Other cities surveyed in 2008 include Baltimore, Miami, Boston, Houston, Phoenix, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Detroit, Philadelphia and St. Louis.

For the second year in a row, Seattle ranked No. 1 in coffee consumption, with 55 percent of residents surveyed saying this elixir of alertness would be the most difficult caffeine product to give up.

Nearly one-half (49 percent) of all respondents nationwide said they drink caffeinated coffee every day, while cola and tea tied with a 20 percent daily consumption rate. Sweets containing chocolate ranked fourth among caffeine products, with a 13 percent daily consumption, the survey found.

Some key survey findings:

Most Coffee Consumption
Regular coffee & specialty coffee drinks

2008                                  2007
1.  Seattle                           1.  Seattle
2.  Miami                             2.  Boston
3.  San Francisco                     3.  Houston
4.  Los Angeles                       4.  Chicago
5.  Tampa                             5.  Miami

Least Coffee Consumption
Regular coffee & specialty coffee drinks

2008                                  2007
1.  St. Louis                         1.  Dallas
2.  Riverside/San Bernardino          2.  New York
3.  Houston                           3.  St. Louis
4.  Phoenix                           4.  Atlanta
5.  Detroit                           5.  Philadelphia

Most Cola Consumption
Regular Coke, regular Pepsi, Mountain Dew

2008                                  2007
1.  Houston                           1.  Chicago
2.  Minneapolis/St. Paul              2.  Dallas
3.  St. Louis                         3.  St. Louis
4.  Chicago                           4.  Atlanta
5.  Washington, D.C.                  5.  Tampa

Least Cola Consumption
Regular Coke, regular Pepsi, Mountain Dew

2008                                2007
1.  New York                        1.  Philadelphia
2.  San Francisco                   2.  New York
3.  Riverside/San Bernardino        3.  Miami
4.  Boston                          4.  Seattle
5.  San Diego                       5.  San Francisco

Most Tea Consumption
Green tea, iced tea, black tea

2008                                2007
1.  New York                        1.  Miami
2.  Tampa                           2.  Tampa
3.  Baltimore                       3.  Washington, D.C.
4.  Boston                          4.  Philadelphia
5.  Atlanta                         5.  Atlanta

Least Tea Consumption
Green tea, iced tea, black tea

2008                                2007
1.  Minneapolis/St. Paul            1.  Minneapolis/St. Paul
2.  Miami                           2.  Detroit
3.  San Francisco                   3.  San Francisco
4.  Detroit                         4.  Seattle
5.  Seattle                         5.  Boston

Most Chocolate Consumption
Candy, ice cream, cake, cookies

2008                                2007
1.  Seattle                         1.  Chicago
2.  Phoenix                         2.  Atlanta
3.  Chicago                         3.  Minneapolis/St. Paul
4.  Detroit                         4.  Phoenix
5.  Boston                          5.  St. Louis

Least Chocolate Consumption
Candy, ice cream, cake, cookies

2008                                2007
1.  Atlanta                         1.  Los Angeles
2.  Dallas                          2.  Riverside/San Bernardino
3.  Riverside/San Bernardino        3.  Houston
4.  San Diego                       4.  Miami
5.  Philadelphia                    5.  Dallas

Most Energy Drink Consumption
Red Bull, Monster etc.

2008                                2007
1.  Atlanta                         1.  Riverside/San Bernardino
2.  Riverside/San Bernardino        2.  Los Angeles
3.  Tampa                           3.  Chicago
4.  Seattle                         4.  Miami
5.  San Diego                       5.  New York

Least Energy Drink Consumption
Red Bull, Monster etc.

2008                                2007
1.  Dallas (tie)                    1.  Philadelphia
1.  Baltimore (tie)                 2.  San Francisco/Oakland
3.  Washington, D.C.                3.  Houston
4.  Detroit                         4.  Dallas/Ft. Worth
5.  Philadelphia & St. Louis (tie)  5.  Boston

Cities Most Likely To Say Caffeine Is Good For You

2008                                2007
1.  New York                        1.  Seattle
2.  Miami                           2.  Chicago
3.  Baltimore                       3.  Miami
4.  Minneapolis/St. Paul            4.  San Diego
5.  Tampa                           5.  Boston

Cities Most Likely To Say Caffeine Is Bad For You

2008                                2007
1.  Detroit                         1.  Los Angeles
2.  Phoenix                         2.  Riverside/San Bernardino
3.  Riverside/San Bernardino        3.  San Francisco
4.  St. Louis                       4.  New York
5.  Houston                         5.  Atlanta

Cities Most Addicted To Caffeine

2008                                2007
1.  Seattle                         1.  Boston
2.  Philadelphia                    2.  Minneapolis/St. Paul
3.  Phoenix                         3.  San Diego
4.  St. Louis                       4.  Chicago
5.  Los Angeles & Boston (tie)      5.  Atlanta

Cities Least Addicted To Caffeine

2008                                2007
1.  Chicago                         1.  New York
2.  Tampa                           2.  Philadelphia
3.  San Francisco                   3.  Miami
4.  Houston                         4.  Houston
5.  Riverside/San Bernadino         5.  Tampa

Consumers tipped their coffee cups on a variety of caffeine-related trends:

For the second straight year, nearly one-half of all respondents (42 percent) said coffee/specialty drinks would be the hardest to give up.
Men are much more likely than women (47 percent vs. 39 percent) to say coffee would be the hardest to give up, similar to the first annual survey.
Nearly three-fourths (72 percent) of all respondents said they are not addicted to caffeine.
Among age groups, the older the consumer, the more likely they are to say coffee would be the most difficult caffeinated product to give up, a pattern similar to that found last year.

Other key findings of the study:

Women are more likely than men to say they are addicted to caffeine (29 percent of women vs. 24 percent of men).
A majority (64 percent) said they consume about the same amount of caffeine as they did a year ago.
More than one-fourth (28 percent) consume less caffeine now than they did a year ago.
The younger the age group, the more likely they are to say they consume more caffeine than a year ago.
Among respondents consuming less caffeine, 53 percent said it is because they are seeking to improve their health; and nearly one-fourth (24 percent) of those consuming less caffeine are doing so because of a change of diet/currently on a diet plan.
More than one-fourth said they consume more caffeine than a year ago because their everyday routine is more demanding. Another six percent said it was because they have more access to caffeine, and 2 percent said they consume more because of fatigue due to sleep problems.
Over one-half of respondents said they are way over their ideal weight (12 percent) or over their ideal weight (54 percent). Only four percent said they were under their ideal weight.

HealthSaver, an emerging health care discount program, offers savings on prescriptions, vision care, complementary and alternative health care treatments, vitamins and supplements by mail and more than 1,500 fitness clubs nationwide, including select Bally Total Fitness, World Gym and Ladies Workout Express locations.

Survey Methodology

There’s something about January that makes you look backward in preparation for going forward…

So I have been thinking about the year that just passed.  The high points.  And the low.

Spilling red wine on my computer at the Specialty Coffee Convention in Minneapolis on the weekend of my book launch was one of the the low low points–my beloved Mac, ruined.!  In retrospect: what comedy:  Holding my  computer as if it were an injured child,  clutching an address in my hand, I jumped into  a cab ordering the driver to take me to the the nearest Mac store.  The cabbie had just arrived in Minneapolis from Senegal.  He had no idea where anything was located. A GPS device sat on his dashboard, but he was so frightened and disoriented that couldn’t absorb the GPS data.  “Turn left on Fairfax,”  the bodyless voice intoned, and the driver paused and turned right.  “Change  direction.” “Change  direction, the machine ordered.  “Go right at the light and then turn right again.”  The driver hesitated, then ignored a red light and drove through an intersection, turning neither left nor right.  The machine squawked.  I screamed.  Screamed like a nutcase.  Like a character in a TV sit com.  The poor driver was overcome, sweating, hunched over the wheel.   Eventually, I realized I was in the presence of a psychiatric crisis far more serious than my own.  I gathered my resources.  “You must be calm, I said in fractured French.  “Calmez-vous.  Calmez-vous et Entend! “You must be calm so you can hear what the machine is saying.    I talked the driver down off the roof and slowly we made our way to the Mac store where I either so stupid or so overcome with pity that I give him a $20 tip –poor son of a bitch, so far from home.   My computer, of course, had suffered a fatal blow and could not be repaired.

Minneapolis was not a highpoint  of my year.

 Seattle was a highpoint.

My book promoting  trip to Seattle last fall  provided ego  gratifications of Stephen Kingian proportions.  I was greeted like a visiting celebrity–well, mini-celebrity:  interviewed, invited, shown all the best spots,  introduced to the most interesting foodies.

I talk about God in a Cup  at one of Michael Hebb’s famous One Pot underground dinners, taking question after question from a sold out crowd, each of them clutching a copy of my book. (Would that writing were as easy and pleasurable as talking!)

That’s me in a skirt with Michael Hebb, aka Hebberoy, Seattle “food provocateur.”

The pleasures of Seattle were legion.

I drank a near perfect cappuccino at the legendary Cafe Vivace.  You could wrap yourself in the cashmere of that milk foam and it would keep you warm…

I  met up again with that talented Guatemalan coffee producer Arturo Aguirre Jr. from the Finca El Injerto at a Stumptown producers event.  (I am  drinking his Pacamara this morning.)

That’s Arturo and his wife and Stumptown Coffee buyer Aleco Chigounis:

My tour guide (and new friend)m  Seattle  blogger and foodie extraordinaire, Traca Savadogo (Seattle Tall Poppy.com) was responsible for a lot of the fun I had in Seattle.    It’s hard to land in a town, knowing you are going to spend just a few day and connect with the right people.  Thanks to Traca, that just wasn’t an issue.

Traca gave me the grand tour, showing me all the really important stuff in Seattle.

The troll under the highway:

The statue of Lenin:

The Ballard Market where Friends don’t let Friends eat Farmed Salmon:

And the carrots at the Ballard market:

Traca took me to the waterfront Market, too, where great mounds of chanterelles were displayed:

The freaks were good natured:

And even the young Orthodox guys from the Chabad mobile are sweet, handsome and benefit from the healthy Seattle lifestyle:

It was Traca, too, who introduced me to the uber talented young chef Ethan Stowell.  Along with a small group of boon companions we shared  a cornucopia of small plates prepared by Stowell at his downtown restaurant, Union.  And I who rarely eat fatty meats swooned for crispy pork belly cleverly paired with earthy, fibrous legumes:

 And then there was the matter of my chocolate awakening.

Until Seattle, I had not had the chocolate conversion experience.  I liked dark chocolate.  But I didn’t get dark chocolate, and chocolate as a culinary subject had not yet engage me.

Then Traca introduced me to Claudio Corallo Chocolate on Seattle’s NW Market Street and something began shifting in my understanding of chocolate as a plant with a seed that is fermented and roasted and that recalls the taste of coffee.

In the weeks since my trip to Seattle that  interest in chocolate, especially the coffee-like chocolate produced by Claudio Corollo has germinated…

More about that in the next day or two…

Yesterday, I was standing on line at BWI airport, waiting to board a flight to Fort Lauderdale.  I was with my husband John, AKA the Latvian bread Nazi.  The flight was two hours late.  I was in a somewhat sad and distracted mood.

We were on our way to Fort Lauderdale to my mother’s house, for what will probably be our last family holiday/celebration there.  My mother’s health has been iffy this year.  Independent living has become a problem, and her house is for sale.  A time of transition for our family.

So I was standing in the Southwest line waiting to board  thinking thoughts more glum than excited even though we were heading towards sunny weather when I spotted a cheerful looking guy, also on line, wearing a red shirt and carrying a very large cake.

I chatted him up and learned his name is Ed.  His wife is Brenda, and it is Brenda’s dad, 76 year old Willis Hughes of Elida, Ohio who made the cake, following a cherished family recipe.

It’s a fruit cake, topped with pecans and  cherries and infused with lots and lots of brandy–when Ed removed the top of the cake dish so we could get a better look at the cak, the fragrance of Brandy wafted from the cake and tickled our noses.  Each cake takes Willis four to six hours to make and he makes a bunch of them every Christmas to be enjoyed by family members–the cakes are big and they get divvied up.  They also get transported, as Ed and Brenda were doing, taking this one to Fort Meyers where it would be shared with cousins and friends.  Willis’s secret for a fabulous fruit cake:  He soaks cheese clothe in a whole cup of brandy, then drapes the cake with the brandy infused clothe and lets it sit for 24 hours.  As a result his cake stays moist and naughtily alcoholic.

Being in the presence of the cheerful and excited Ed and Brenda and hearing the story of their family cake made so lovingly year after year by Brenda’s Dad, filled me with this wonderful feeling about ordinary people’s capacity to muddle through sad times and hard times with the help oftheir traditions and rituals and the  love and laughter of their family and friends.

To me being a foodie is an almost holy thing.  The beautiful  food — and beautiful coffee — we make and share with each other at this time of year and every time of year expresses our gratitude and our reverence for life.

Here’s Ed holding his father-in-law’s cake.  I wish them and all my friends a beautiful holiday and peace on earth.

I promised an editor that I would write a short online piece this afternoon.  The assignment is a tad boring, and I have a tendency when not engaged to procrastinate.

Which is how I came upon a post on coffeed.com,  that   appeared in the online New York Times on December 12th, 2008.

The post, by Jennifer 8. Lee describes an art installation at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City that recreates an iconic espresso bar with living baristas making espressos and handing them to passers by.

The installation plays with museum visitors’ expectations, destabilizing  their sense of reality and raising questions about about is art– but doing it in an ironic and humorous way.   Can a functioning espresso bar be a work of art that represents an espresso bar when real espresso trickles from the espresso machine’s grouphead?  I  love that kind of mind-bending confusion.

I can’t help feeling sad, though, that  espresso as art is being explored visually, but not in a culinary sense.  What’s iconic is the visual.  Issues related to the artful possibilities of the beverage are never raised.  This oversight seems emblematic to me of the continuing anomaly of specialty coffee.  No matter how many coffee articles are published in the New York Times, still, only a tiny portion of sophisticated coffee drinkers pay attention to the artfulness or lack their of the taste of the content of their cup.

 http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/can-serving-espresso-be-conside

DECEMBER 12, 2008, 12:14 PM
Guggenheim Turns Coffee Into Art

By JENNIFER 8. LEE
A new art installation at the Guggenheim Museum is giving out free cups of espresso and cappuccino. (Photo: Librado Romero/The New York Times)
Plunked on the spiraling ramp of the Guggenheim Museum is a wooden counter with young baristas working three red espresso machines, handing out free cups of espresso, cappucinos and lattes. The line for the giveaways sometimes stretches more than a dozen people down the ramp.

It’s confusing for many a passer-by.

Is the Guggenheim expanding its downstairs cafe? Are the stylish machines being celebrated for their design, as the Museum of Modern Art honors consumer products. Were the baristas performance artists? Or perhaps it’s a promotion for Illy Caffe? (à la Whole Foods- or Costco-style sampling … companies are getting awfully creative these days).

Actually, the bar, the espresso, the baristas and the experience of drinking are part of an installation in Guggenheim’s barely there, sometimes invisible exhibition, “theanyspacewhatever,” which runs until Jan. 7. It’s an experiential exhibit, one that emphasizes the artistic for senses beyond just sight.

Of course, the piece that has gotten the most attention is the bed-hotel room by the German artist Carsten Höller. A fee (reportedly $700) and a reservation will allow two people to spend the night. You don’t have to stay at the bed. Apparently you can walk around the museum, but a guard follows you around.

The coffee exhibit, just a stretch down from the bed, was created by Rirkrit Tiravanija and Douglas Gordon and is part of an installation called Cinéma Liberté/Bar Lounge. (The other half is a movie.)

This barista-as-art piece seemed really out there — a little beyond us. So City Room asked the installation: Um, do people really get it?

“Some of them do, some of them don’t,” said Mariuxi Tapia, one of the baristas.

“We always have to explain it to them,” chimed in Travis Rosenberg, another barista. He noted that a lot of people think the coffee is being given away free “because the Guggenheim is nice.”

Or they think it’s just a cafe, he said. “They’ll come and ask, ‘How much is it?’ and we’ll say, ‘Free.’ And they’ll say, ‘Three?’”

But others assume the baristas are the installation — perhaps models. “A lot of people will come and ask, ‘Are you the art?’ And we say, ‘As much as you are,’” Mr. Rosenberg said.

Mr. Tiravaniga is known for incorporating food into his art. In 1992, he made his mark by making and giving away Thai curry at a SoHo gallery to anyone who would come eat it. He had his first solo show at the Guggenheim in 2005.

“The artist tries to do socially interactive art — it’s challenging ‘Art as an Object’ and is more ‘Art as an Experience,’” explained Mr. Rosenberg, who himself is a musician.

Art as experience. O.K.

Arguably, New York is experiencing a coffee renaissance these days with cafes, coffeehouses and espresso bars popping up like mushrooms after a fall rain. And we hear, of course, about the art of espresso-making, the art of roasting coffee, the art of the white latte foam. But we wanted to know, can the consumption of coffee itself really be considered “Art?”

So calls were made to some coffee connoisseurs for their feedback.

“Can coffee be art?” mused Jonathan Spiel, owner of Tea Lounge, which is known for doing intricate designs in the foam on top of their lattes. “In a manner of speaking, yes.”

Though when pressed, he foundered a bit. “It’s a little bit out there for me, too,” he admitted. “I’m not sure what it means outside the art of making a cup of latte or good cappuccinos, and knowing your customer.”

Then, he added: “I don’t get the art experience of it as part as an exhibit. I wish I did know, because maybe I’d be in the Guggenheim.”

“I guess there is a deep, deep comment,” said Caroline Bell, co-owner of Cafe Grumpy, which has two shops in New York City. Ms. Bell compared the Guggenheim piece with how the Takashi Murakami exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum of Art also elevated the interaction with every day objects.

“Once you put it in that environment, you are forcing people to think of it that way,” she said.

There is, of course, coffee-napkin art, but that’s probably not what the Guggenheim is celebrating.

“Our idea is to make this coffee experience polysensual,” said Andrea Illy, the chief executive of Illy, whose coffee is being distributed as part of the installation. “It’s as if we are functioning in an installation. There is a practical function to this installation.”

Illy has a long history of artistic sponsorship, particularly with contemporary artists. “Usually we have our own projects within major artistic exhibitions,” Mr. Illy said. “To be presented as the art itself, that is something big. It’s the first time that has happened.”

Ms. Bell volunteered that the conversation with the barista itself can be savored. “Art is interaction,” she said.

Mr. Spiel echoed that idea of the customer experience: the ordering, the questions, the conversation, the exchange.

“We put your milk in it. We put your sugar in it for you. When we hand you a cup of coffee. We want you to take a sip and that is exactly what you want,” he said.

Then there is the art of making the coffee itself.

“Being a barista is an art, but it takes a lot of skill,” Ms. Bell said. “I don’t think coffee is art to a lot of people. In our stores, we try to consider it that way. It takes skill in how we prepare it.”

Of the installation, she commented, “Hopefully they are doing a good job in grinding.” (There actually is no grinding. The machines use pre-made capsules.)

Then there is art in the very space of the coffeehouses themselves, which are often crafted to be homey and comfortable.

“We want them to feel at home; our places are like an extension of their living room,” said Mr. Spiel, whose Park Slope Tea Lounge is a wide expanse of old couches and worn wooden tables.

Of course, if it is the comfy coffee house that the installation was aiming for, it falls awfully short. It has more a barren industrial feel than a welcoming lounge. The bar is made out of unpainted plywood. The sign is spray-painted on ina scrawl, rather than in a full-bodied graffiti. And instead of comfortable chairs, there are just two limp bean bags.

Then again, the whole experience of drinking espresso upstairs in the Guggenheim is startling and a bit contradictory, particularly since the security guards won’t let you bring coffee from the downstairs cafe upstairs — but you can walk around with coffee from the installation.

“The Guggenheim is a very special museum, it’s practically a sculpture,” observed Carlo Bach, the art director for Illy. “It’s like to drink a coffee in the middle of the sculpture.”

Apparently, the installation did not want the users to have too much of a user experience — or at least not the people who would stay overnight in the bed installation, Mr. Rosenberg said.

“We started hiding things so they couldn’t come down here and make their own coffee,” he said.