I finally understand coffee. It took 24 years and a breakfast of fluffy white bread and jam to get it, but here I am, ‘getting’ it.
When two Montreal business men who you meet in a small hotel in Lima, Peru remark on the quality of the coffee included in the continental breakfast, you take note. Montreal loves its coffee, but Lima is a whole lot closer to the coffee bean action. So my second morning at the hotel, I broke with my own tradition and tried the coffee.
It was bitter. And I really didn’t see what the big deal was. It didn’t have an unpleasant aftertaste, but it wasn’t big and rich or incredibly smooth. I was ready to be bowled over with coffee perfection, but I just sat there, confused.
But then I put the strawberry jam on a square bun, pulling the cloud-like insides out first, and leaving the hard-baked crust for last, and I took another sip of coffee. I think my eyes actually lit up. Suddenly the bitterness was exactly what I wanted. With so much sugar in the breakfast it cuts through the sweet fruit and you taste everything at once. I don’t think I would have loved the coffee with the chicken tamale that was breakfast the day before. More oil than fowl, the steamed cornmeal sat in my stomach until my next meal at 9:30pm, which I guess is the point. But coffee + sugar + bread was brilliant. And Montreal has been doing this forever (via France, I suppose): baguette, confiture, café. I just never understood before.
Okay, Montreal. You win. You too, Lima.
Photo by SnapbyThree MY on Unsplash
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