Coffee Crisis

Bloody Suvarnabumhi (Suvaboomi to the locals) Airport is, I repeat, a shocker. It was 700m from the gate to the baggage carousel, the first 400m of that with no travellator. I'll correct that: no travellator going in my direction. There is one going out, but none coming back. (Something like Muldoon Manor in Tom Stoppard's hilarious "The Real Inspector Hound," where, due to a quirk in the local geographic strata, there are roads leading TO the Manor, but no roads leading FROM the Manor - misty moors, fog rolling in from Pirate's Cove, mysterious strangers, mixed identities, love unrequited, dead body under the couch, no-one shall leave the room sort of thing).

As I was saying before I was distracted, bloody Suvaboomi... The scale is just wrong. It's huge (lengthy) in the places it should be more compact, tight as a fish's arse in the places that it should be more expansive, like the reception area. AND half the time for domestic flight the planes are way out in a tarmac parking area and you have to bus out - this is a brand new(ish) modern airport and you still you have to bus out to the plane - amazingly backward. I was fortunate today as my Krabi flight came to the terminal, but still, it's the principle.

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I am supposed to be headed to extremely flooded Uttraradit now, but the plane leaves from the old Don Muaeng airport on the other side of town. Even though it is three hours to my flight, I'd better head off soon. Taxi!!

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Regard the above hinted at coffee issues: just quickly, I have decided to eschew the espresso paradigm and seek my caffeine solace outside its restricted, esoteric and pompous purview. I ordered a Viennese coffee here at the airport and received a cup of whipped cream. I was told that there was a smidgen of caffeine bearing liquid at the bottom, but by the time I removed 95% of the pseudo-dairy product and stirred the remaining 5% into those few drops of brownish fluid, it was cold and horrible and gone in a large sip. What happened to the days when a Viennese coffee was a cup of coffee (a CUP!) with some fresh cream floating on top? (Some say this was the precursor of the cappuccino? The coffee part of a cappuccino should be dark brown btw, the colour of the monks' robes.)

Why can I not find a coffee establishment that serves the type of coffee they give you for breakfast at a hotel? I have been knocking off the majority of a mug of brewed java every morning. Fantastic. You get a large plunger at the Excelesior in Hong Kong. Fantastic. There was drip filter machine in my hotel room in Krabi with free sachets and filter papers. Fantastic.

You can get a CUP of coffee from these devices.

That was the way it used to be. Thanks to the bloody Italians and there hegemony over the coffee zeitgeist, every coffee for sale in every coffee shop in the world is a variation on the espresso. OK espresso is nice; strong, sip sip, gone, but what about if you want a FULL CUP of strong coffee? An Americano (espresso topped with hot water) is disgusting BTW.

I want to drink plunger coffee, percolated coffee (what I brew up for our post-Christmas dinner chats - and tea-towel throwing championships -around the table), freshly brewed coffee, instant coffee, even fucking Cafe-Bar coffee! Anything that fills a freaking cup!

One day (I'm just a young kid with a crazy dream) I'm going to open an international coffee house (they are licensed to print money these places, all profit, it's unbelievable!) that serves the entire range of way to prepare coffees, delivered at your table according to your preference... Let's break this espresso paradigm!



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There is a restaurant in Singapore that serves its coffee (espresso based) in cups that have an oblique finger-hold (what do you all those things? The handle? But it's not for hands, it's for fingers - the fingle?) This work fine so long as you hold the cup in your right hand; lovely, comfortable, stable. In case no-one suspected this, I am left-handed. If I try to pick up this type of cup in my left hand - WHOA!! - it tilts at an angle frighteningly close to pants-scalding.

"Please, may I have a left-handed coffee cup?

I've always wanted to ask that.

E@L