Tamping - Forget the Coffee, Get the Teapot

 

I’ve just been trying to read an article about what happens if I tamp expresso too hard. I quickly lost interest and gave up. On the occasion that I might have a cup of coffee, presently once a day, it is from a jar of instant Nescafe Gold. It will do for me. Visitors to my house can have the same, or choose between regular Nescafe or decaf. At the moment, there are still a few sachets of instant latte lurking in the beverage cupboard, left over from when we thought them a good idea. Nescafe, of course, but unwanted, not liked, still in date. I’m baffled by coffee menus in Costa, Starbucks and similar. On reading the first sentence of that article, I'd satisfied  myself I’m not missing out on anything. I don’t need a coffee maker or a tamping mat, though the mat could possibly have other uses.

Morecambe promenade, circa 1960. Sunday morning with my visiting grandparents always involved going to church – Sunday School for me – then a stroll along the front to what I think must have been Nanna Hetty’s favourite café. We had cups of coffee, even me at age five or six. It was either to warm me up on a cold day, or the huge glasses of squash were considered too much. I enjoyed these excursions and remember feeling quite grown up having coffee and popping two light-brown sugar cubes into the cup. I don’t think there was any fuss about choice. Coffee was coffee and in our house and Nanna Hetty’s house, it was in a small, round tin, in powder form. A few years later, when I was old enough to go to the shop by myself, I sometimes bought an individual sachet of instant Nescafe for a few pence. This was old money, pre-decimal. It was just the coffee, not the ones with added milk powder that are available today. I wonder then, when did all these types of coffee and the use of tamping mats come about?

Italian brothers, Sergio and Bruno Costa started their coffee bean roastery in London around 1971 and opened their first coffee bar in 1981. In Seattle USA, the Starbuck team of business partners Jerry Baldwin, Gordon Bowker and Zev Siegl were doing the same thing around the same time. Fifty-plus years later, they are both globally established, offering a long list of different coffees, keeping their baristas busy with their tamping mats. My daughter doesn’t generally like coffee, maybe a caramel latte, but on a short holiday in London when she was about fourteen, she carried a takeaway Costa cup everywhere as it seemed to be the thing to do. And she didn’t walk with us, she was either a little in front, or a couple of paces behind. Funny that.

Well, those of you with tamping mats, coffee makers, even percolators or coffee bean grinders, you know what you like, so enjoy. I'll have a pot of strong tea. A good builder's brew.

My Haiku,

Who wants a latte?
What’s ordinary coffee?
Is it a flat white?

The Barista’s job,
What is tamping all about?
What is expresso?

Why a tiny cup?
I’ll have English Breakfast Tea,
Yes, tea. Very strong.

Thanks for reading, Pam x