A Letter to European Coffee

Dear European Coffee,

I can’t stop thinking about you. It’s only been seven short weeks since our last encounter but you have me daydreaming about the next time I can have you. Why are you so great? Is it because you’re from Europe? How can you taste so different than coffee back home?

I tried to go to Starbucks today but it just wasn’t the same.
It just can’t be without the local espresso powder, authentic machines, and those charming little cafes with wicker and white-wired chairs. There was no one there to hand me a perfectly foamed drink while simultaneously accenting cappuccino correctly.

How can you make dark roast taste so good? Espresso is not an “easy“ flavor by any means, but you somehow manage to make it enjoyable without anything added. Even café con leche is better tasting overseas. Your flavor is bolder, your caffeine content higher, and your ingredients more natural. You’ve been lucky to have centuries of love and care put into crafting the best possible flavor combination. Your roasts have traveled across the continent for hundreds of years before America was even born, and it has paid off.

Not only have you perfected the blends, you have also built and fostered the very devices used to cook and liquefy said blends to the ideal that coffee is today. The wide variety of trinkets and machines that go into the different coffee beverages are exemplary, and can truly make or break the taste; much more so than your standard drip here.

Maybe it’s the ambiance of sitting perched at a coffee bar or on a cobblestone street, watching the locals go by, and enjoying the scents, sights, and feelings of embracing the culture. Or maybe it’s the tiny sandwiches and biscuits lined up in brightly colored rows and made fresh that morning, that pair so well with your taste. It could even be the tiny, appropriately-portion sized mugs and glasses that hold you.

Whatever the reason may be for being so great, you had my heart at first sip. I love you, European coffee.

Signed,
Hopelessly Devoted to Brew

Written by Katherine Taylor