Coffee in Words

In The Praise of Coffee
by Sheik Ansari Djezeri Hanball Abd-al-Kadir, 1857

Oh coffee, you dispel the worries of the great, you point the way to those who have wandered from the path of knowledge. Coffee is the drink of the friends of God, and of His servants who seek wisdom.

As coffee steeps in the cup it gives off a musky aroma and turns the color of ink. No one can understand the truth until he drinks of its frothy goodness. Those who condemn coffee as causing man harm are fools in the eyes of God.

Coffee is the common man's gold, and like gold it brings to every man the feeling of luxury and nobility. Coffee differs from pure, gentle milk only in its taste and color. Take time in your preparation of coffee and God will be with you and bless you and your table. Where coffee is served there is grace and splendor and friendship and happiness.

All cares vanish as the coffee cup is raised to the lips. Coffee flows through your body as freely as your life's blood, refreshing all that it touches; look you at the youth and vigour of those who drink it.

Whoever tastes coffee will forever forswear the liquor of the grape. Oh drink of God's glory, your purity brings to man only well being and nobility.

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Italian Coffee at Sea
by D. H. Lawrence, Sea and Sardinia.

"Another head - and a black alpaca jacket and a serviette this time - to tell us coffee is ready. Not before it is time, too. We go down into the subterranean state-room and sit on the screw-pin chairs, while the ship does the slide-and-slope trot under us, and we drink a couple of cups of coffee and milk, and eat a piece of bread and butter.

At least one of the innumerable members of the crew gives me one cup, then casts me off. It is most obviously his intention that I shall get no more; because of course the innumerable members of the crew could all just do with another coffee and milk. However, though the ship heaves and the alpaca coats cluster menacingly in the doorway, I balance my way to the tin buffet and seize the coffee pot and the milk pot..."

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Coffee at Gunpoint
by Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

"The coffee-maker was almost ready to bubble. I turned the flame low and watched the water rise. It hung a little at the bottom of the glass tube. I turned the flame up just enough to get it over the hump and then turned it low again quickly. I stirred the coffee and covered it. I set my timer for three minutes. Very methodical guy, Marlowe. Nothing must intefere with his coffee technique. Not even a gun in the hand of a desperate character."