As A Life Elixir

 

By Yar Zar Myint Zan

 

I HATED some things when I was a child. Among them, coffee is included. I did not want to wash dishes, do housework, run errands, etc. I had so many complaints about the food. Although I liked drinking milk, my family members especially my dad liked coffee and toasted bread. I hate those food most. My dad and mom did not notice it at first and always urged me to take coffee every breakfast. However, I gradually happened to take notice of some information associated with coffee later.

 

One day, a piece of news said that Coffee is good for us. There was a time when medical professionals nixed it, believing it to be a carcinogen. But they now conclude that its mix of chemicals, including antioxidants alongside renowned caffeine, blocks or blunts an array of afflictions: heart failure, heart disease, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and colon cancer. Coffee strengthens the liver. “Research”, the paper of record concluded, “Found that those who drank moderate amounts of coffee, even with a little sugar, were up to 30 per cent less likely to die during the study period.” If we can just knock out that remaining 70 per cent, we’ll have something.

 

ts is fine but needless, for we city-dwellers would drink the black god anyway. If science reverted to its censorious past and worse, and told us that coffee was fatal, we would shrug and say, “Fine,” so long as we could have a cup first. As mentioned earlier, as a child I disliked it. When my parents let me sip what they drank, I did not ask again. It looked like cocoa but wasn’t. When I first began to take it in college, I would always add sugar, not a little but many spoonsful — a farewell nod to my childish tastes. Only after I came to the city did I appreciate the real thing.

 

Diner coffee came in China mugs, Deli coffee in blue-andwhite paper cups with Parthenon imagery, and a proclamation in a Pseudo-Greek font, Happy to Serve You. Old coffeehouses served espresso, actual Greek restaurants served Greek coffee, and bistros served au lait in fat little bowls with lion heads for handles. Late in the day came the conglomerate, hip, and un-unionized. Forget all these styles and stylings, savor with me the thing itself.

 

le? Do we remember blankets, warm embraces? What is the temperature of mother’s milk? Even as heat soothes, it fortifies. When the after-midnight room begins to chill on all-nighters, coffee won’t. S t r o n g i n the morning, and strong in the evening, coffee is the original geothermal heat source

 

It is black. Warmth may summon breasts and motherhood; blackness is night and Old Nick. Wild dogs roam there, galaxies keep indifferent watch, and only 24-hour gas stations are open. Coffee is the colour of adulthood, of no longer having to obey a curfew. What else are the nighthawks drinking? Club soda?

 

Coffee gives that jolt. This is the caffeine speaking, not the antioxidant first-aid squad. Do you want to read that last report, finish writing that scene, make the point that you know will win the bull session, or prolong the date one more inning? Coffee will carry you. You need to pry open t h o s e eyes on the commuter-train platform, step into the rig to cross another state, greet the dawn wind and the pelicans with brightness equal to their own? Coffee is there. Is it better at these tasks than cigarettes or fortified soft drinks? We haven’t run a test, but coffee is still legal and hallowed by tradition. On your mark.

 

All these advantages are half mental, the residue of associations (though no less real for that). The hard-boiled detective asked for coffee, made this year; the hard-boiled diplomat wanted his black as the devil, hot as hell, pure as an angel, sweet as love. In my daily life, I have put coffee into routines that ritualize its consumption and its effects. Between showering and shaving, and my wife seeing her first patient, we walk two and a half blocks along the still-shaded street, step down into the converted basement of the walk-up, take our place in line behind the other morning drinkers, and tell the youngsters born in the downtown what we are having. Every ten punches in our frequent-flyer card get us a free coffee; we collect them often. As we sit on our heart back wrought-iron chairs and drink, we comment on the ambient scene: obnoxious voices, dogs of noble breed, and noteworthy fashion choices. Midafternoon we make the same visit. We would do it at night if the place still kept its pre-Covid hours as if with the mind of a considerate attendant, coffee stimulates but never seems to deprive us of sleep. Speaking of youngsters, I notice my fellow drinkers preferring other brews. Tea, our forefathers would be interested to know, has made a big comeback. Youth drinks fermented tea, g r o u n d t e a leaves, and tea infused with bubbles. When I was in a far-flung land everyone drank yerba mate, a caffeine-delivery system, discovered by the natives, based on ground-up holly leaves. Etiquette dictated that it be sipped from gourds through metal pipes. I have not seen it here yet, but I am sure it will arrive. Part of me says, though we all act according to our national customs, these customs are not mine. Another part says, by taking all comers, everything comes to us; we triumph by yielding. How pure a coffee drinker could I be anyway, since I always take mine with milk? Foamed in the winter, iced now: What would a smart gentleman say?

 

Prices meanwhile go in only one direction. The automats filled your cup for a nickel. Now the barista taps an order onto a computer screen and flips it over to you to present your tip options and the line on which you write your name with your finger. When the little eye on the terminal that deep-kisses your credit card changes colour, your payment is made. Desire makes the world go round.

 

The taste and fantasy I meant above do not intend the prepacked low-cost coffee that can be obtained in a roadside snack shop. They are called instant coffee. Instant coffee is a type of coffee made from dried coffee extract. Similar to how regular coffee is brewed, the extract is made by brewing ground coffee beans, although it’s more concentrated. After brewing, the water is removed from the extract to make dry fragments or powder, both of which dissolve when added to water.

 

There are two main ways to make instant coffee:

 

(1) Spray-drying. Coffee extract is sprayed into hot air, which quickly dries the droplets and turns them into fine powder or small pieces.

(2) Freeze-drying. The coffee extract is frozen and cuts into small fragments, which are dried at a low temperature under vacuum conditions.

 

Both methods preserve the quality, aroma, and flavour of the coffee. The most common way to prepare instant coffee is to add one teaspoon of powder to a cup of hot water. The strength of the coffee can easily be adjusted by adding more or less powder to your cup. Instant coffee also contains antioxidants, some nutrients, and slightly less caffeine, but more acrylamide. However, low-cost instant coffee cannot be genuine coffee these days as in the time everything is expensive, the manufacturers cannot afford to use genuine quality raw material in the instant coffee packs which will be sold at low prices such as a hundred kyat per pack. To sum up my account, my dear readers might agree with the title of this article. It will be according to your wish. But coffee has been consumed worldwide since the middle of the 15th Century.