Brewing Up Some Trouble

I'm the absent-minded-professor type. When I should be minding my p's and q's or making sure there are no obstacles in my path, I am thinking about the origin of the word coffee and its many wonderful synonyms. Well, yes, a cup of coffee would be good about now, and, as I told my historian friend, "More coffee, more Diane!"

Anyway, the etymology of coffee is in dispute (surprised?), but most sources agree that the word originated in Africa, where the Coffea plant grows, and came to us from the Arabic قهوة (qahwah), the Turkish kavfeh, and, through trade (ca. 1598) between the Ottoman Empire and Venice, the Italian caffè. (For another post, we got the concept of zero in much the same way.)

My favorite way to make coffee at home is right away, first thing in the morning.  Beyond that, I use a one-cup drip filter and cone. The problem here is that you have to take care of a lot of things, and without drinking any coffee first, I  might add. Find a clean cup. Boil water. Figure out where you are keeping the filters these days and fit filter paper into the cone. Measure out coffee. Pour boiling water over coffee into cup.

While my mind is in the ivory tower thinking about the origin of the word coffee, wondering if there are some lovely famous quotations about coffee like there are about tea, promising myself to look up the difference between moka and espresso, I discover that I forgot to buy coffee filters. And not for the first time, either!

What to do? Remember Harper, Paul Newman's detective character in a 1966 movie with Lauren Bacall playing his client. (Harper, directed by Jack Smight, performed by Paul Newman, Lauren Bacall, Julie Harris, and others, Warner Bros.) Harper wakes up, bleary-eyed, stumbles around the kitchen trying to make coffee, finds that he is out of Chemex filters, and goes through the trash until he finds one he can use, all the while thinking about his next move in solving the case.