Direct Trade: coffee at its best
Defiant Imagination is back! After a months-long hiatus, due in part to an international sporting event that took place in Vancouver last month. I hope to be able to write here regularly again.
Customers can get their coffee brewed with siphon machines at Café Myriade.
A little bit of self-promotion: my article on Direct Trade was published in The Warehouse. High-end coffee was just beginning to reach the East Coast when I left Montreal, and I find it definitely easier to have access to good coffee in Vancouver. What a blessing! I will always remember the hour I spent with Jean-François Leduc, owner of Montreal’s Caffè in Gamba. “Isn’t this macchiato delicious!” he exclaimed, after force-feeding me the third cup of dark mixture. (I spent the most energetic hours of my life after this.) Indeed it was, and I have since then been accustomed to this creamy and salty taste.
I’m glad North America is discovering quality coffee. These huge cups of tasteless “sock juce,” as we call it in France, served in non-reusable cardboard cups, are nonsense. Coffee should be savoured during a good conversation with a good friend, or while looking at passers-by, or while reading a good book. Coffee gives you the opportunity to sit back, take a break for a few minutes and enjoy your surroundings. So here’s my article:
It’s early in the afternoon and I’m enjoying one of the last warm days of September, sitting on the terrace of Café Myriade. I’m savouring a cup of thick, black Tanzanian coffee that the barista recommended for the brewing technique I selected.