this ain't livin'

Tasting the Jasmine

It was early afternoon when I struggled awake through a fog of warmth and comfort. It had been a long evening and I was one of the first up thanks to the dastardly deviant who had the audacity to enter my sanctum. I glared at the interloper in the doorway.

“Tea,” I croaked. “Tea!”

“Beep,” said my phone, buried somewhere.

In response, he mercilessly thrust a glass of water at me and disappeared.

After a brisk shower, I felt more prepared to enter the world and I drifted downstairs in a pair of pants I found that looked reasonably clean and last night’s shirt. Coffee was brewing next to the stove and I ignored it, as I always do. I haven’t touched coffee in ten years–no reason to start now. Paul Oakenfold was playing softly on the stereo and the morning was muffled in fog. I put the tea kettle on and rummaged in the cupboards until I found some Earl Grey that looked decent.

I went out into the back to see what sort of day it was going to be and while I stood there pondering the sky a hand thrust a warm cup into my hand. The smell was suspicious and I raised my eyebrow.

“Drink,” he said.

“I don’t drink coffee,” I said.

“Drink it,” he said.

Caught up in the moment, or perhaps still half asleep, I hesitantly raised it to my lips and sipped.

Jeffrey Steingarten says about coffee that: “Have you ever felt that coffee–in the roaster or the grinder, in the can or in the bag, in the coffeemaker or the cup–nearly always smells better than it tastes? This is the cause of our eternal torment and discontent, us coffee lovers. We never stop searching for the impossible, for a way to drink the heady, complex, incomparable aroma of coffee...The predominant flavors are caramel, flowers (including jasmine), fruit, chocolate, honey, and toast–but only if you do everything exactly right. One false step and you are totally doomed. One false step and you will never taste the jasmine.*”

Perhaps it was merely the morning, half asleep and brooding, the sense of being hungover but never having been drunk. Perhaps it was the company. Perhaps it was a confluence of the music, the fog, the air, the scents around me. It was the heat of the moment, she says.

But I tasted a little bit of heaven that morning. Unusually for me, I wasn’t even able to utter a profanity when I lowered the cup–I just looked back at him, stunned.

“See,” he said, a little smugly. “You like it, don’t you?”

He took a drag of his cigarette and a sip of coffee from his own cup.

“Woah,” I said, taking another furtive sip. “What on earth is this?”

“This,” he said, “is Blue Mountain.”

Blue Mountain, true Blue Mountain, must be certified by the Coffee Industry Board of Jamaica. Only four parishes are allowed to produce coffee which can be labeled “Blue Mountain”: Saint Andrew, Saint Thomas, Portland, and Saint Mary. The trademarked coffee must be grown between 3,000 and 5,500 feet in order to be labeled thusly.

It’s one of the most expensive and sought after coffees in the world, and now I understand why.

My first cup of Blue Mountain made me question my previously held beliefs about coffee. It was mild, rich, nutty, and the scent of jasmine rolled from it around my nose and across my tastebuds. It was perfection in a single cup, so pure and spectacular that it caused me to give a momentary thanks to the gods.

I can’t quite explain the experience. I hadn’t had coffee in ten years, so it’s hard to contrast it with other types of coffee. I don’t smoke, so my tastebuds aren’t corrupted. But the flavour was out of this world. It embodied for me what I always imagined coffee should be like. I drank it and I understood, suddenly, addiction.

Try it sometime…if you can afford it.

*It Must Have Been Something I Ate, Vintage Press, 2002

[Blue Mountain Coffee]

Tags: Food