Beany Baby – part two – The Return of the Bean

Dee made me promises. She told me that it would be so much fun trying out lots of different real coffees and lots of different coffee shops and finding the ones I liked. But rather like a virgin deflowered by a skilled Casanova up and away before dawn, only to find all future lovers just sweaty grunting fumblers; my second, third and fourth experiences of real coffee did not live up to my new standards.

First was my local Costa Coffee. Big chain, lots of success, lots of experience. Kind of like hooking up with the captain of the school football team who you’ve watched as he worked his way through the entire sixth form of girls before finally, finally you go ‘Oh OK then…’ and decide you haven’t the energy to resist his obvious charms any more.

But it was a BAD move. I ordered the same thing Dee had ordered me from the wonderful café in London – an Americano with oat milk. It was NOT the same. They only had almond milk, so I agreed to compromise. They handed me some liquid in an oversized cardboard cup instead of the tasteful artisan mug I’d been anticipating. I sighed and reminded myself that looks can be deceiving and I mustn’t judge yet. So I sniffed it. It smelled…kind of like instant really. Not off-putting but not very impressive either. So I leaned in and puckered my mouth into a cat’s bottom shape to receive the liquid from the tiny hole in the plastic lid only to recoil in horror as the contents savagely burned my lips and tongue.

‘OUCH!’ I exclaimed loudly, scowling at the lady behind the counter, as if she had just clumsily jabbed me with a disappointing penis without any foreplay or even a kiss.

DISAPPOINTING PENIS

‘Be careful – It’s hot.’ she warned…rather too late for any usefulness.

‘No shit, Sherlock.’ I whispered under my breath, clutching my cardboard cup and taking it with me outside to the pavement where I hoped the afternoon air would cool down my beverage a bit more speedily so I could actually taste it.

I waited. And tasted. It was not nice. I’m feeling too lazy to even try to describe my disappointment. There’ll be a Costa in your home town even if you live on the Moon, so if you want to know what disappointment tastes like you can go and order your own cardboard cup of let-down and stop expecting me to experience everything for you. I shoved coffee up my bum for you guys, if you’ll remember, but even I have my limits.

I messaged Dee when I got home. She was very consolatory. She told me that the beans probably weren’t freshly ground. Freshly ground beans were the key to rich flavours. I felt better knowing more information. I’d made a simple, rookie mistake.

My second time without Dee was slightly better. A lovely independent (I think) local café called Finch House, which sells the most incredible mini cakes – mini banoffee pies, mini apple crumbles, mini blackforest gateaus. You can buy five minis for an affordable price that I’ve forgotten and eat all five in one sitting without feeling really sick. And only slightly guilty. But this time I wasn’t there for the miniature edible delights. This time I was there to see my lovely pal, Barbara, for a catchup and to drink fine coffee.

My hopes were high. They have pretty rustic wooden furniture and comfy arm chairs and flattering natural light coming in from the big windows, edging out over the tasteful hues of duck egg blue and that particular grey that’s in every kitchen on Pinterest at the moment. The staff look like they like working there and care about what they are serving. They may even make the cakes themselves. Or at least eat the cakes themselves, which would explain their general air of contentment as they serve you. The place exudes relaxation and quality. I could see actual coffee beans in a coffee bean holding thingy behind the counter. It was promising.

I ordered our drinks and was delighted to see the barista (for this is the correct name of the serving wenches – male or female – in a coffee shop) getting out two fine looking artisanal proper mugs. They even included an artisanal jug of oat milk. My tray looked grand and proper and grownup.

DYING ON THE INSIDE

But despite the splendid company and surroundings, the coffee still didn’t taste anything like my first proper coffee. I was smiling on the outside, but dying a little on the inside with each sip. This wasn’t nearly so much fun as Dee made out – trying different types, finding out what I liked. All I could think about was my first love, those perfect moments of woman meets drink where everything felt so good and natural without effort. Finch House’s coffee was passable. But it wasn’t MY coffee.

Coffee attempts numbers three and four were so disappointing I can’t even be bothered to…

So I knew then that there was only one thing left to do. I had to seek out the only beans that have ever made me happy. I had to find out the origin of this perfect nectar.

“Write to the hotel”, advised Dee. They’ll be able to tell you. So I did. And the lovely Mai from Citadines Hotel in The Barbican didn’t laugh in my face when I explained my pathetic First World problem. She went and promptly found out for me from the Sourced Market Café attached to the hotel that the coffee of my dreams was by a company called Origin and the milk that I’d had with it was the ‘Oatly’ brand. Mai was my hero.

Armed with this new information, I excitedly started to scour the Internet for a coffee shop near me that sold the brand. When I had no luck, I found the Origin website, hoping I could purchase from them directly.

So there I was, on the Origin website, staring at packets of beans. Instead of one kind of beans, there were multiple options, all from different countries, with different ‘flavour accents’. I realised I’d been naive about coffee and it was kind of like stumbling into Oddbins and just demanding they ‘GIVE ME WINE!’ without knowing my Merlot from my Liebfraumilch. This was going to be harder than I thought.

I wondered if I could guess my coffee from the descriptions on the packets:-

There was the very passionate sounding Los Altos from Nicaragua, containing flavour accents of Milk Chocolate, Caramel and Red Berry. Or the fun sounding Karutu PB from Kenya, with flavour hints of Strawberry Jelly Sweets, Red Apple and Apricot Jam (REALLY?!!). But try as hard as I could, I simply couldn’t guess which of the many varieties of bean were *my* beans.

Back to Mai at Citadines I went. Dear Mai, more information needed – both about the exact type of coffee and the milk. Mai was a darling, and she (I presume Mai is a she), went straight away and photographed the exact beans for me and confirmed that the exact milk I needed was Oatly Barista.

Back I went to the Origin website but my precious beans were nowhere to be found! I began to feel a sense of rising panic coursing through my veins. What if those special beans were *only* available to cafés to purchase in bulk and not to the likes of me?! I did a wider search for the name of the special beans that Mai had found for me – ‘Sourced Market Espresso‘ and lo and behold I found an article about them. They were a very special collaboration between Origin and the Coffee Shop/delicatessan ‘Sourced Market’ where I’d tasted them the first time. I googled the locations of the coffee shops, but none were any closer to me than London. I considered a pilgrimage to London JUST to buy the coffee but even I could see that was excessive. In desperation, I threw myself at the mercy of Sourced Market– the coffee shop responsible for these perfect roasty toasty beans, hoping they would be able to point me in the right direction as I said a small but solemn prayer to whichever deity caters for socially acceptable addictions. And I waited.

I didn’t have to wait too long. The lovely people at Sourced Market were not only warm to my desperate letter but charmed by my special love-at-first-sip affair with their beans. ‘We take really care of what comes in the blend – I spend countless afternoons tasting coffee to ensure we have the right product.’, wrote Federika, their official Head of Coffee.

Yes yes, I thought, you are bloody marvelous..just please just tell me where to find… My Precious…

MY PRECIOUS

And then she hit me with the bad news. The beans were a very special blend from two micro farmers in two different countries – El Savador and Colombia. And the harvest of those particle beans was very nearly at an end. I couldn’t purchase those precious brown jewels anywhere in the world!!! BUT….and it was a big and lovely but…to soften the blow and in light of my heartfelt letter of appreciation for their product, these angels of beandom were sending me a free 1kg bag of some of the very last of this harvest of beans!!!!

My friends…this is the moment in the film when the heroine finds her long lost love after searching through mountains and desert and Mars and Mordor only to discover him coughing his last failing breaths before dying in her arms! The bitter-sweetness of finding my dream coffee at last, only to know our time was already ticking away to nothing.

But on the bright side, 1000g of the most precious beans on Earth were mine! ALL MINE! (I’ve never had beans of my own before). But at the end of the bag was a lifetime of heartbreak – never knowing if I would find coffee-love again with another bean, never knowing who those micro farmers were and if they secretly had a stash they weren’t sharing. Or if it was being traded secretly on the Colombian black market by powers unknown.

‘You’ll need a grinder,’ Dee instructed, so wise in the ways of all things caffeinated.

Grinders were no problem, superb little electric grinders can be purchased from Amazon for less than it costs to buy a round of coffees in most coffee shops in the South East. Grinders I can do. With next day delivery, I felt sure it wouldn’t be long before I found those beans and we were back together again in sensual heaven. Grinder ordered, and dusty old cafetière found in the back of the cupboard where it has been ever since my ex-husband moved out a hundred years ago, I felt like I was very nearly getting somewhere.

The day the magic beans arrived at my house I felt quite anxious in case the love spell would be broken and I wouldn’t be able to replicate the experience in London. I had a grinder (not a mincer, as I kept calling it…must get the new terminology right if I am to be a serious coffee drinker). I had a cafetière. I’d been to Sainsbury’s and bought some Oatly Barista milk. And then finally there were the beans themselves.

I carefully opened the packet and looked at the lovely things. So perfect in shape, they looked like someone had cast them in antique bronze from little moulds. They smelled…divine. I tried to place the smell. Buttered toast. That’s what I think of when I smell those coffee beans. And for someone on a sensible diet who hasn’t had buttered toast in a long time, that smell is so bloody precious. But I realised in my excitement for acquiring the little beans that I hadn’t a clue what to do with them. I was back to feeling like a clueless virgin again, who has no more idea what to do with someone else’s genitals (or beans) than with the arse end of a space shuttle. I felt a certain degree of shame that at the age of 45, other people knew how to do this stuff and I was so useless.

This is what the Internet was invented for. Sticking close to the source of my beans, I emailed their staff for help. I was thwarted when I rapidly received an ‘out of office’ reply notice saying my friendly contacts there were away on leave for several days. So with a bit of careful Googling, I located a ‘how to brew a perfect cup’ type video from Origin.

Let’s get one thing straight. I’m the kind of girl who hates following recipes, who refuses to read manuals, who ‘figures things out’ by herself rather than have to follow carefully prescribed modes of behaviour. But I did it for the love of the beany beans. Those babies had my name on and were calling me.

The video said I should weigh out 21.5g of beans into my grinder. The anxiety it caused when I realised my kitchen scales would not measure in half grams! Do I round up or down?!! Up and I am using up my beans faster, round down and I might make weak coffee. In the end I opted for 22g and vowed not to drink my special coffee every day so as to make it last longer. I worked out I would have approximately 50 days of coffee from my precious stock if I didn’t have to share it.

Following the video, I warmed my cafetière with warm water first, then added my ground beans. The little grinder worked brilliantly, but I had no idea how long to grind for. I opted for 20 seconds. BIG MISTAKE. My first cup of coffee tasted bitter and burned. I messaged Dee in a panic. ‘Don’t grind so long.’ I Googled again, 8-15 seconds was considered perfection. I settled at 9. I didn’t want bitter beans.

DON’T GRIND SO LONG

Brewing in my cafetière for exactly 3 minutes, as timed by Siri on my iPhone, I stood staring at it, willing it to hurry up. Finally I was able to plunge, pour and add my oat milk. ‘Don’t plunge too fast!’ exclaimed my partner, André, as he watched me with fascination and anticipation holding the mug up to my lips and taking my first gulp, letting it furl over my tongue like a cat over a cushion.

There it was. The beauty! The perfection! That buttered toast smell and that roasty nutty goodness that took me right back to the hotel with Dee and the girls. Sweet coffee, my love, at last I have found you! We only have 50 days together, beany baby, but we are going to make them count!

Having perfected the method of preparation of said coffee, I have, of course, developed a dependency on the stuff for my morning ritual which has taken on an almost religious reverence. All very well and good except each day I watch the bag contents dwindle more and more. Friends come over and ask for ‘proper coffee’ and I am torn between wanting to be a good hostess and sharing my treasure with them to see if they love it as much as I do or acting up like someone with serious issues and shouting at them very loudly that they can’t have my beans. MY BEANS. ALL MINE. You can have Nescafé and be grateful!!!

Four days later, in a fit of excitement as I brewed my morning coffee I flailed my arm wildly and sent my cafetière flying, spilling coffee and broken glass across the room. My first thought was panic, not for the broken item or smashed glass around my bare feet, but out of a deep deep sadness that I wasn’t going to get my morning coffee that day. For one split second I considered licking it off the floor. I’m starting to realise I’ve joined the rest of the world in an obsessive and possibly darker-than-intended relationship with the brown stuff.

My lovely Andre replaced my cafetière very quickly with a beautiful glass and copper single portion one before I could lick anything that would kill me or cut me, and even bought a special designer glass mug for me to look at my coffee lovingly through while I drink it. Bless him.

So this has become my morning ritual. I do not waste a single bean. And when I grind them, I have to consciously remind myself to unplug the electric grinder before sticking my fingers in to swirl around the blades to get every last teensy bit of the coffee powder out like a character from Trainspotting, as losing my fingers to this new passion would be a new level of stupid even for me. As I drink, I purr and mew with delight and roll my eyes back in my head and the world feels good for a few minutes. It’s my own little special private moment with myself. And the truth is…I don’t really love any of you enough to want to share these last few beans with you. I’m a few cups away from devastation and loss now. I want to gather the beautiful remaining beans up in my fingers and cradle them like little babies, or rub them over my face like…something weird you’d rub your face in because you’re a weirdo. I sniff them slowly every morning making an mmmm noise like a pervert. When they are gone I won’t know what to do with myself, my grinder, my cafetière or my little glass mug.

So now I’m on the hunt for a new bean. I feel unfaithful even writing that. Like someone listing themselves on Tinder before they’ve even switched off the life support on their spouse.

Can you recommend another coffee that’s as good as sex? Will I ever love again? Or am I going to have to travel to El Salvador and Colombia and bribe some dangerous coffee cartel into sharing their secrets with me?

I will end here because all this talk about coffee is making me need to go and sniff my remaining beans again. That girl Dee has a LOT to answer for.