Coffee

The Swiss drink a lot of coffee, and the Swiss drink good coffee. No Swiss home is coplete without a coffee machine. Not a coffee pot, not a coffee maker, a coffee machine. An espresso machine. Cafe quality coffee at the touch of a button. This is my coffee machine. She's a beaut, no?

This is how I get through the mornings. With one touch the beans are freshly ground, rrrrrrrr, tamped down, click-bang click-bang, hot water is pressed through the grinds, whirrrr, and the used grounds dumped, puh, into the dredge drawer. (It's one of the wonders of the world, my coffee machine, but it's not quiet.) We have three settings: one button will produce a proper espresso hot and strong; one button will pour out my perfect cup - the bean strength of an espresso but with more water so that it is larger and a bit milder; and the third button makes a large coffee - it's too weak and we never use it and I wonder now why we have it programmed. A good cup of coffee should have a light foam on top the color of wet sand and when served in a restaurant or cafe should always come with a bite-sized Sussigkeit, a sweet little something, usually a chocolate but sometimes a tiny cookie. Restaurants do not serve drip coffee, thus no "bottomless cup" but on the other hand each cup is perfectly fresh. While we were visiting Chicagoland over Thanksgiving my sister-in-law asked me if I'd experienced the "waitress leaning right over the baby's head with a coffee pot" yet and I said "K, it's Switzerland. They don't do coffee pots, remember?" My brother, who had falled madly in love with my coffee machine when they visited us, said "oh you're killing me."

I have come to rely on the fact that even the diciest-looking railway bar will have an espresso machine where I can get a proper coffee, small and strong with a light coat of foam on top and a Sussigkeitli on the side. And everybody drinks a nice cup of coffee after lunch. It's one of the many ways I find the Swiss have woven small pleasures into their day. Coffee may be a stimulant, and used as such, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't taste good and be properly presented. Some restaurants train the staff just so - the treat has its position on the saucer as does the creamer, and the spoon rests at a certain angle. Oh I know that sounds so very "Swiss," but it's also a pleasure to take such a small everyday thing as a cup of coffee so seriously, to present it with such care as if it matters rather than just slopping it out into the cup. Because it does matter. It's a small moment of paying attention, of granting import to our rituals of eating and drinking. Sure it may sound so Swiss to be so precise, but we could all stand to pay a little more attention to our coffee cups now and then, couldn't we?