Interesting Talk on Coffee Culture: Is American Coffee Lower-End Than Espresso? Strike a Blow at the Coffee "Contempt Chain"

Text | Jiang Yinlong

If there is a "chain of contempt" in the coffee world, Americano is too easy to be listed at the bottom of the chain. The standard way to make Americano is to first fill the cup with about 80% hot water, and then pour two cups of extracted espresso directly into it - intuitively speaking, Americano is equal to espresso mixed with water, and Americano with milk is equal to latte (espresso plus milk plus milk foam) mixed with water. Obviously, this production method is difficult to have too much ritual sense.

The "contempt" for American coffee reached its peak in France. The French called American coffee "jus de chaussette", which is a name with an allusion. During the Franco-Prussian War, French soldiers could not carry special coffee utensils during the march, so they had to use hard objects such as gun butts to simply and roughly crush the coffee beans, and then boil them in an iron pot. The only filter material they could find was socks. After the war, "sock juice" became a general term for bad coffee until American coffee inherited this "crown".

Coffee Type

Interestingly, espresso has also acquired a derogatory connotation in the United States. Similar to the European political terms "champagne socialism" and "caviar leftism", the American "latte liberalism" is also used to describe the "why not eat meat" upper class. These social elites who have long achieved financial freedom drink lattes in boutique coffee shops while shouting slogans of liberalism. The aroma of coffee conceals their refined egoism.

The mockery between American coffee and espresso has actually long been irrelevant to the taste of the drinks themselves. Espresso diluted with water is not necessarily inferior to espresso, and espresso with milk and milk foam does not necessarily make people poisoned by "elitism". This mockery represents the collision of two cultures, and the collision of cultures will naturally lead to two unique histories.

Simple iced Americano

Traditional coffee: an ancient and complex ritual

Since the 20th century, coffee houses have been dominated by espresso, which seems to be a kind of fate: the first stop for coffee to be introduced to Europe was Venice. However, since it was "introduced", the origin of coffee must naturally be traced back eastward along the route of Venetian merchants - the birthplace of coffee is neither in Europe nor in Asia, but on the Ethiopian Plateau in East Africa.

Until the 21st century, the long history of Ethiopian coffee tradition can still be seen from the tedious brewing process. It often takes more than an hour for Ethiopians to make a cup of homemade coffee: drinkers must start by washing their own sun-dried coffee cherries, removing the peel and pulp, leaving the coffee beans. After that, sprinkle spices on the fire to fill the room with fragrance, and then put the coffee beans on an iron plate and heat them on the fire, stirring with an iron hook. After a few minutes, the coffee beans will have the "first crack". After being roasted to golden brown, pour them into a mortar and grind them into fine powder with a pestle. Then pour the ground coffee powder into a clay pot, add spices such as cardamom and cinnamon and cook them together...

There is no doubt that even the most artistic coffee houses in France or Japan cannot compare with the traditional Ethiopian coffee in terms of ritual. The Ethiopian coffee brewing method reflects the delicate pursuit of coffee itself, coffee utensils, drinking occasions and other aspects, which is close to the "coffee Taoism". It is worth noting that the traditional Ethiopian coffee is not filtered. The drinker may drink some suspended coffee powder, but most of the residue will remain at the bottom of the cup. This unfiltered "fundamentalist" coffee has a very strong taste, and its wildness and ruggedness complement the African style.

Ethiopian traditional coffee

Soon, coffee spread across the narrow Red Sea to Yemen in the southwest of the Arabian Peninsula. At first, Sufis in Islam began to drink coffee to stay awake during prayer ceremonies, but soon this magical drink went from religious to secular. Various "Kaveh Kanes (coffee houses)" began to emerge in the streets and alleys, and the rich even built coffee houses at home. By the end of the 15th century, Muslims had brought coffee to the entire Islamic world and gave birth to a relatively mature coffee house culture. People were happy to chat and talk about the past and the present in coffee houses, and coffee houses naturally became a distribution center for social information. A century later, Edward Lloyd founded Lloyd's of London based on the coffee houses he operated, relying on the flow of information in coffee houses.

Of course, speech often brings trouble. In 1511, Kyle Berg, the governor of Mecca in the Ottoman Empire, discovered that poems satirizing him were circulating in coffee houses, and in anger he ordered the closure of all coffee houses in Mecca. Of course, this ban did not and could not last long, as coffee fans were everywhere in the government and the public, including the Sultan himself. However, the Kyle Berg incident did reflect one aspect of coffee house culture: coffee is exciting, and coffee houses provide people with an excellent place to communicate, which will breed new ideas, culture, and even revolutions.

Arabica Coffee

Compared with the long history of coffee, the history of coffee filtration seems extremely short. Ethiopian coffee, Arabic coffee, Turkish coffee, these traditional coffees are all unfiltered, and the same is true for Greek coffee, which is deeply influenced by Turkish coffee. If coffee had not entered Europe, if coffee had brought traditional coffee brewing methods with it, if Europeans had not started to develop filter equipment by chance or necessity... Without all these ifs, American coffee and espresso would not exist, and the French, Japanese, Vietnamese, and Brazilians would spend a long time in a fragrant room, just like the Ethiopians, to taste a cup of coffee with various spices and a little powder floating on it.

This scenario did not ultimately happen because coffee took a different path after it was introduced to Europe.

Turkish Coffee

Espresso: Revolution and elitism

When coffee entered Europe, it brought coffeehouse culture with it. In 1615, Venetian merchants brought coffee to Italy for the first time. Just a few decades later, coffeehouses spread from the Apennine Peninsula all the way north to London. Because the Ottoman Empire strictly prohibited the production of raw coffee beans, Europe did not have the ability to produce coffee. From a macro perspective, this seemed to have led to two results: first, coffee was initially popular among the aristocracy, and the homemade coffee brewed by Ethiopians over a low fire could not appear in the lives of the general public, and coffee lacked a popular color; second, compared to the drinking function of coffee itself, the social function of coffeehouses was more valued by Europeans, which further deepened the attribute of coffee as a "social drink".

More importantly, coffee was introduced to Europe at the same time as the Enlightenment. In the kingdoms ruled by monarchs, the ideas of freedom, democracy and equality were surging, and the emerging bourgeois elite needed a suitable social occasion. At this time, coffee houses "arrived as promised", establishing their important position in the next few centuries.

Early European coffee houses

During the Ottoman Empire, people sang poems satirizing those in power in coffee houses; and during the Enlightenment in Europe, countless poets, believers, students, writers, philosophers, and revolutionaries flocked to coffee houses to explore the possibilities of humanity's future. Thoughts themselves contain endless power, and ideas gathered together are like explosives - before the outbreak of the French Revolution, the most fearless "heretics" in France gathered in Parisian coffee houses, and it was these people who eventually caused the Bourbon dynasty to collapse.

Rather than saying that coffee changed Europe, it is better to say that coffee houses changed Europe. When a coffee house opens in a place, it will naturally gather the most radical and talented people in the area. People come to coffee houses for the atmosphere and freedom, and coffee becomes the icing on the cake. At least at the end of the 17th century, the coffee that Europeans drank was still traditional unfiltered coffee, which can be inferred from the fortune tellers who were widely walking in coffee houses at that time. After drinking traditional coffee, there will be residue at the bottom. If the coffee cup is turned upside down on a saucer, the fortune teller can predict good or bad luck through the shape of these residues. For example, a full moon represents good luck, a half moon represents stability, a new moon represents caution, and a crescent moon represents unhappiness... There is no lack of classical romance in it.

Coffee fortune telling

Therefore, until this time, Europe had not really developed its own coffee culture. In the early 18th century, the French invented immersion coffee similar to the later tea bag style, and added milk to it to form café au lait (literally translated as milk coffee), but compared to the delicate and complex Ethiopian coffee, this type of coffee is more like a fast-moving consumer product.

In the 19th century, coffee filters represented by French presses and syphons were invented one after another, and European coffee really embarked on the road of independent development. Europeans gradually began to buy roasted coffee beans to grind and brew at home, but the soul of European coffee has always been in coffee houses. In the early 20th century, espresso machines were introduced, and espresso bars once again became a favorite social place for Europeans, especially Italians. Coffee houses are to Italians what izakayas are to Japanese. They are used to holding coffee while standing and drinking it while chatting with friends, and then get up and leave after drinking. Classic coffees based on Italian espresso, such as latte, cappuccino, ricotta, macchiato, and colato, were bred in this coffee house culture and spread to the world.

European coffee culture, with coffee houses as its soul, has developed a distinctive coffee style in just a hundred years. However, compared with traditional Ethiopian coffee, the process of making and drinking European coffee is still too simplified. Italian espresso is undoubtedly lacking in ritual, but the world is so wonderful - because the more "sloppy" American coffee was born on the other side of the Atlantic.

Upright siphon pot

American coffee: wildness and civilian spirit

America is far from the birthplace of coffee. The connection between coffee and this new continent began with the European colonial expansion. In the early 17th century, the Dutch smuggled a coffee tree from the Ottoman Empire and successfully planted it in Southeast Asia. A few decades later, they presented a coffee tree seedling to France. In 1723, a French officer overcame many difficulties and brought coffee seeds and planting techniques to Martinique, a French colony in Central America. From then on, the spark of coffee spread slowly in Latin America. Until the 21st century, Latin America is still one of the most important coffee producing areas in the world.

Coffee has high requirements for the terrain and climate of the place of origin. The United States is not suitable for coffee cultivation, but Americans quickly became fans of coffee. This is not because the United States is close to Latin America and "gets the moon first because it is close to the water". The United States was originally a British colony and was deeply influenced by the British tea drinking culture. However, after the Boston Tea Party, suppressing tea became "politically correct", and coffee, a substitute for tea, naturally became more and more popular. During the War of 1812, Britain imposed a tea embargo on the United States, and the French, who were close to the United States, popularized coffee. As a result, Americans became more fanatical about coffee. At the same time, Brazil has become an important coffee producing area, and Americans can buy coffee at a very low price. Therefore, when coffee first became popular in the United States, it was positioned as a civilian beverage. Although it also has social attributes, compared with the European coffee culture centered on cafes, coffee is obviously more functional in the eyes of Americans.

Boston Tea Party

As evidence, coffee had become a necessity for American pioneers during the westward movement. A surveyor at the time pointed out that coffee was "an indispensable item on the menu of the western prairie. As long as the pioneers had coffee and tobacco, they could endure any hardship; without these two things, they would lose the motivation to move forward and become depressed."

As a functional beverage, American coffee has been tainted with the rough and direct color of Americans since its introduction. While Europeans were busy researching various sophisticated filter tools, American "coffee experts" tried to enhance the precipitation of coffee grounds by adding strange additives when brewing coffee. These additives include eggs, eggshells, cod, eel skin...

Wild Americans "improved" coffee in their own way, and coffee gradually became the "national drink" of Americans in the process of "improvement". During the Civil War, coffee became the most important military pay for the US Army, and some Sharps carbines were even designed with stocks that could hang grinders - in this environment, Americans did not invent slang such as "sock juice", which was naturally not a matter of taste, but a matter of temperament. In any case, at the latest in the 1870s, the consumption of coffee in the United States was six times that of the entire Europe. Although Americans are not as sophisticated as Europeans in tasting coffee, they should have more say.

Coffee Coffee tree is botanically classified as…

After the outbreak of World War II, American soldiers took their favorite coffee with them to the battlefields of Europe and the Pacific. Compared with the Civil War, the supply during World War II was more difficult, and American soldiers had to accept weaker coffee and new instant coffee; and civilians in the rear began to use various methods to make diluted coffee in order to save more coffee for the army. Americans fighting in distant places obviously could not compare with Europeans who still maintained a high taste for coffee in the ruins of the city. After several years of war, Americans had become accustomed to light-tasting coffee, and American coffee was formed under the baptism of such difficult years.

World War II plays an important role in the history of coffee dissemination. In a sense, the love of American soldiers for coffee laid the foundation for the three waves of coffee after the war. The world was influenced by the trend of Americans drinking coffee during the war. At the same time, the ancient European countries with a deep historical accumulation could also sublimate their contempt for American coffee. However, considering that France, a former colonial power, was defeated by Germany at lightning speed during World War II, and Italy's poor performance in World War II, their sense of superiority in the coffee world seemed to be tarnished.

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Conclusion

If coffee is considered an art, it was conceived in the Ethiopian period, fermented by the Arab and Ottoman empires, and formed its own system. The coffee art of this period is far from being comparable to the later espresso or American coffee. However, traditional Ethiopian coffee did not influence the world. Coffee spread to other corners of the world with the footsteps of European colonists. From this perspective, the global coffee culture was reset and re-cultivated during the Age of Exploration, while espresso and American coffee are the representatives of European and American coffee cultures. The former represents elitism, while the latter is more liberal and populist.

However, although the Age of Exploration expanded the origin and consumption of coffee worldwide, coffee was still some distance away from becoming a "world drink". As an agricultural crop, coffee's origins already include Southeast Asia and Latin America, but as a drink, coffee is neither "Eastern" nor "Latin American", it is still "European and American". Europe contributed to the exquisite and fierce coffee house culture, and the United States contributed to the world's largest coffee consumption. These two forces were magnified by the strong national strength of Europe and the United States. Coffee truly became a world drink, and it was finally realized in the three "coffee waves" after World War II. American soldiers promoted the first coffee wave in the world war, and American coffee merchants promoted the second coffee wave in their local business operations;. The "rough" and "lacking cultural accumulation" American coffee industry has actually created two coffee waves; coffee has become a world drink thanks to the United States, which can only be said to be a typical black humor. After understanding this long history of coffee culture, can we still simply fix American coffee and Italian espresso on the "contempt chain"?

There are indeed different levels of coffee, but the standard is definitely not espresso or Americano.