![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
When I first heard of "cafe americano," a coffee drink consisting of espresso diluted with hot water, I thought it was some kind of a joke, a crutch for Americans in Europe looking for something resembling their homeland's notoriously weak brewed coffee. The phrase "diluted espresso" just doesn't sound very appealing. Who wants anything diluted?
My first inkling that the americano could be a legitimate beverage occurred at Caltech when one was ordered by a colleague at the cafe. I was taken aback. This was an otherwise cultured individual with discriminating tastes... I monitored his expressions for signs of irony, but there were none; this colleague generally exhibits the best poker face, and I imagine he might undertake a radical action with a straight face just to observe the reactions of his comrades.
Later I returned to privately sample this questionable beverage, and I found it distinctly agreeable, with the flavor of espresso but the quantity one requires when working out a problem over coffee, and a flavor somehow superior to those other espresso drinks diluted with milk.
Brewed coffee can be very good, but outside of America's Pacific Northwest it tends towards the putrid; the Americano, on the other hand, provides a certain guaranteed minimum of strength and quality. Here in Louisiana it has become my caffeinated beverage of choice.
My first inkling that the americano could be a legitimate beverage occurred at Caltech when one was ordered by a colleague at the cafe. I was taken aback. This was an otherwise cultured individual with discriminating tastes... I monitored his expressions for signs of irony, but there were none; this colleague generally exhibits the best poker face, and I imagine he might undertake a radical action with a straight face just to observe the reactions of his comrades.
Later I returned to privately sample this questionable beverage, and I found it distinctly agreeable, with the flavor of espresso but the quantity one requires when working out a problem over coffee, and a flavor somehow superior to those other espresso drinks diluted with milk.
Brewed coffee can be very good, but outside of America's Pacific Northwest it tends towards the putrid; the Americano, on the other hand, provides a certain guaranteed minimum of strength and quality. Here in Louisiana it has become my caffeinated beverage of choice.
