Java Jolt: God in a Cup: the Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Coffee
By Michaele Weissman
Review by Nora Nunn
Imagine a cup of coffee so ambrosial that it makes you believe in God. (In
the lingo of coffee lovers, such a proselytizing brew is known as a ―godshot.‖) Just what compels certain folks to de-vote their lives to trading, selling, growing, and imbibing this celestial beverage is the subject of Michaele Weissman‘s engaging and informative God in a Cup: the Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Coffee.
Cinema has its waves, and so does coffee. As Weissman notes, we are currently in the ―Third Wave.‖ The heroes of our time are hirsute thirtysomethings who don‘t wear business suits not because they can‘t afford them, but because they disdain them as a matter of principle. You‘ll find their roasts at cafes such as Intelligentsia (Chicago), Counter Culture (Durham), and Stumptown (Portland), where you may pay, on average, anywhere from $12 to $20 for a pound of coffee.
These specialty entrepreneurs, who trek around the equato-rial belt to build
―direct relationships‖ with farm-ers, sell high and buy high so that their commercial transactions may also benefit coffee growers. These men consider themselves ―coffee revolution-aries,‖ and they insist on the need to ―see the rela-tionships between the producer and the consumer ends of the coffee chain.‖ (Female merchants are woefully absent in this trade, and the brave few who are present are often subject to misogynist sniggers of their peers.) Third Wave philosophy emerged as an allergic reaction to the industrialized modus operandi of Second Wave corporations such as Starbucks, who buy low and sell high. The Third Wave departs even more dramatically from the First Wave, a post-World War II mindset epitomized by ersatz coffee (e.g., instant Nescafe).
Weissman‘s book is a work of anthropol-ogy, really, a savvy meditation on the cult of mostly middle-class American and European cof-fee worshippers. She travels to a competition in Nicaragua where official testers flex their ―cupping‖ muscles,
grading local products on their quality on a scale from 0-100. Some coffees inspire rapture, garnering scores in the upper 90s; others invoke apathy or even, worse, dis-gust, receiving scores in the 70s and 80s. Pear, chalky, rosewater, elegant, rye, and dead are among the myriad of ad-jectives applied to the beverages in question. (Some of the more bi-zarre—and questionable—modifiers include wintergreen, bubblegum, and root beer.)
Stateside, Weissman keenly observes a cutthroat barista compe-tition in Los Angeles where coffee gurus artfully create espressos, cap-puccinos, and rosettas (the fancy designs in the foam) at Olympian lev-els. The majority of baristas don skinny jeans, Woody Allen glasses, and retro shoes, embracing the hipster style (―the pretentious rejection of everything traditionally held to be pretentious‖). Though they may froth exquisite lattes, these coffee purists drink their brew black, never deigning to ―adulterate‖ it with milk, sugar, or (heaven forbid) flavor syrups.
Before I read God in a Cup, I thought that I truly appreciated coffee, spending a good fraction of my living allowance on local Maraba and Lake Kivu blends, bringing a Melita filter cone from America in my suitcase, but compared to these java worshippers, my devotion is amateur.
Weissman‘s ―quest for the perfect coffee‖ lures her to environments where the crop grows best: high altitudes with rich, volcanic soils. Naturally, Africa features prominently in her od-yssey. While Ethiopia, the cradle of all coffee varieties and Mecca for any coffee lover, garners ample attention (as far as coffee goes, the country
the lingo of coffee lovers, such a proselytizing brew is known as a ―godshot.‖) Just what compels certain folks to de-vote their lives to trading, selling, growing, and imbibing this celestial beverage is the subject of Michaele Weissman‘s engaging and informative God in a Cup: the Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Coffee.
Cinema has its waves, and so does coffee. As Weissman notes, we are currently in the ―Third Wave.‖ The heroes of our time are hirsute thirtysomethings who don‘t wear business suits not because they can‘t afford them, but because they disdain them as a matter of principle. You‘ll find their roasts at cafes such as Intelligentsia (Chicago), Counter Culture (Durham), and Stumptown (Portland), where you may pay, on average, anywhere from $12 to $20 for a pound of coffee.
These specialty entrepreneurs, who trek around the equato-rial belt to build
―direct relationships‖ with farm-ers, sell high and buy high so that their commercial transactions may also benefit coffee growers. These men consider themselves ―coffee revolution-aries,‖ and they insist on the need to ―see the rela-tionships between the producer and the consumer ends of the coffee chain.‖ (Female merchants are woefully absent in this trade, and the brave few who are present are often subject to misogynist sniggers of their peers.) Third Wave philosophy emerged as an allergic reaction to the industrialized modus operandi of Second Wave corporations such as Starbucks, who buy low and sell high. The Third Wave departs even more dramatically from the First Wave, a post-World War II mindset epitomized by ersatz coffee (e.g., instant Nescafe).
Weissman‘s book is a work of anthropol-ogy, really, a savvy meditation on the cult of mostly middle-class American and European cof-fee worshippers. She travels to a competition in Nicaragua where official testers flex their ―cupping‖ muscles,
grading local products on their quality on a scale from 0-100. Some coffees inspire rapture, garnering scores in the upper 90s; others invoke apathy or even, worse, dis-gust, receiving scores in the 70s and 80s. Pear, chalky, rosewater, elegant, rye, and dead are among the myriad of ad-jectives applied to the beverages in question. (Some of the more bi-zarre—and questionable—modifiers include wintergreen, bubblegum, and root beer.)
Stateside, Weissman keenly observes a cutthroat barista compe-tition in Los Angeles where coffee gurus artfully create espressos, cap-puccinos, and rosettas (the fancy designs in the foam) at Olympian lev-els. The majority of baristas don skinny jeans, Woody Allen glasses, and retro shoes, embracing the hipster style (―the pretentious rejection of everything traditionally held to be pretentious‖). Though they may froth exquisite lattes, these coffee purists drink their brew black, never deigning to ―adulterate‖ it with milk, sugar, or (heaven forbid) flavor syrups.
Before I read God in a Cup, I thought that I truly appreciated coffee, spending a good fraction of my living allowance on local Maraba and Lake Kivu blends, bringing a Melita filter cone from America in my suitcase, but compared to these java worshippers, my devotion is amateur.
Weissman‘s ―quest for the perfect coffee‖ lures her to environments where the crop grows best: high altitudes with rich, volcanic soils. Naturally, Africa features prominently in her od-yssey. While Ethiopia, the cradle of all coffee varieties and Mecca for any coffee lover, garners ample attention (as far as coffee goes, the country