Coffee @ the Heatherlea

When introduced to the workings of the kitchen, I was shown a cabinet filled with teas and coffees. “Just add some to it and help yourself for any of it; it’s the community tea and coffee cupboard,” I was told. Unfortunately, all the coffee was instant. That wasn’t so surprising, but I wasn’t excited about instant coffee. I bought some instant coffee I had here on a previous trip and it is okay. It tastes like pretty good instant coffee.

A few days ago, I saw real coffee on the counter and asked how one might brew such a fine thing. Al (Heatherlea owner) shows me this interesting contraption where the water is placed in the bottom, the coffee in a filter area, that is screwed to the bottom of a tiny pot, and the entire thing placed directly on the stove burning at a constant temperature of hellfire. This turns the water in the bottom into steam, sends the steam through the coffee grounds and up through a tube and into the empty reservoir on top. This sounded fascinating. Cora, a colleague at work, warned me it would be like espresso if I filled it up completely. Anyway, I made some this morning. The coffee was Starbucks, house blend medium. I put in about two-thirds of the coffee it would have taken to fill it. It was amazing how fast it made the product. Unfortunately, the product is awful. It doesn't taste like coffee exactly. In fact, it is so weird it doesn't taste like espresso either. It simply tastes like something went wrong.

I said to Lina (German, 20ish) and Claire (English, 40ish), "At home, you can just set my coffee maker to start the coffee before you get up so that when you walk down stairs the coffee is hot and ready."

They laugh, then Lina says, "That is exactly how I dream of America."

Claire says, "He's not serious.... wait, are you serious?"

"Yes, I'm serious," I tell them. "You just set the time you want the coffee maker to start. It's not a big deal, we could buy one of these at Sainsbury's."

"NO!" Claire yells. "You can't buy that at Sainsbury's; you live in the future!" And she walked out the back door to have a cigarette.

I almost died laughing, a bit at her response, but mostly that they still aren't sure if I am kidding about a crazy coffee maker that starts when you tell it to.

I'm still drank my yucky coffee after bringing it to work with me. Actually by then it was cold AND bad, a winning combination. Jared and Cora, my two main collaborators here, have since given me a French coffee press. I'll try that. I bought some coffee tonight, but it wasn’t specifically marked for a French press. I’ll update you if it comes out like coffee or like Turkish coffee.

Quick Updates:

-turns out Al’s partner’s parents actually own the Heatherlea.

-it was a B&B pretty much since the end of WWII when the US confiscated it. Al says four years ago, there was a knock at the door, and three old men asked if they could come in a sit around for a while; they had been stationed in the house during WWII.

-whisky (or whiskey in our language) is expensive; I’ll get there. I did one and I’ll post something about it soon.

-spending too much time getting you acquainted with Edinburgh to tell you about math; I’m not sure if you care. Maybe I’ll write about math when I have nothing else to say.

-when shopping this evening, I checked at Sainsbury's and you can NOT in fact purchase a drip coffee maker with a digital clock, let alone one that is programmable. How much more would that cost, 94 pence? (where pence are like our cents)