How to write about Coffee

I've been reading John Thorne's collection, Serious Pig, off and on since... February, at least.  I believe my brother Joe gave it to me for my birthday in November.  It is a monster of a book, especially considering it is a food book—not a cookbook, though there are recipes—at just under 500 pages.  It is this size that has kept me from blasting through it like I did with other food books (Thorne's Outlaw Cook included).  And I think this is really the better way to read a food book; pace yourself and allow certain bits to soak in.  With writing this good, you don't want to let any wash away in the rush of flipped pages.

I could go on about the different sections and why Thorne's writing has been such a great comfort and educator for me over the past year or so, but instead I'll just let him do the talking:

From his essay "A Cup of Coffee":

To acquire a taste for coffee doesn't mean you have to learn to love its flavor—though, obviously, you can.  What you do have to love, though, is the ritual. 

And I mean all of it, from the way you take your coffee—straight black and scalding hot or modulated with cream and sugar—to the way you blow into it and wrap your hands around the cup, to the way you lift it to your mouth.  This is our culture's way of allowing us to orchestrate a moment's worth of personal space.  Whether you sigh and sink into a stupor at the counter with your cup untouched before you or drink its contents down in a flurry of agitated motions—for that instant everything has stopped.  If someone happens to walk in as you pour yourself a cup, they know to hold their fire.  "Stand back and let me have this," these gestures say.  "I need it."

When I read John Thorne, two words come up over and over for me: "Aha!" and "Exactly!"

BRIAN OUT.