Plate XVI · section 12 of 21

The North and the East: copper kettles, lemon and flambéed cognac

Woodcut of a night coffee stall in London: a rolling table sheltered by a canvas, lit by a lamp, where a vendor serves cups and slices of bread and butter to standing customers. — The coffee stall of the streets of LondonHenry Anelay and Walter George Mason, in Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor (1851) · Public domain

In Norway, the boiling method prevails, that is, the grounds are boiled in the water instead of the water being passed through them. The utensil then makes the custom.

The coffee is thrown into a large open copper kettle. In modest houses, this kettle comes as it is to the table, set on a wooden board. In well-off houses, it is decanted into silver coffeepots. The drink is the same, it is the vessel that tells the rank.

The country has almost nothing resembling a coffeehouse. The only things approaching it are the coffee rooms of Christiania, small single rooms where one takes porridge with coffee. They are mostly frequented by poor students, who use them as study rooms.

Ukers 1922, ch. XXXV, p. 655-694

Russia drinks more tea than coffee. The people prepare it the Turkish way when they can find it. And what they find is most often a cheap substitute, that is, a roasted product that replaces coffee without containing any.

The Russian-style coffee of the aristocracy is something else entirely: a strong black coffee, flavored with lemon.

Another recipe is made at the table and ends in a flame. The coffee is placed in a large punch bowl. It is covered with a layer of finely chopped apples and pears. Cognac is poured over the whole, and a match is brought to it.

Ukers 1922, ch. XXXV, p. 655-694

Legend · Gustav III of Sweden is said to have wanted to settle the quarrel between tea drinkers and coffee drinkers. He is said to have pardoned two twin brothers condemned to death, on one condition. One would drink only coffee, the other only tea, for the rest of their days.

The whole punch line lies in the order of the deaths. The physician charged with following them died first, then the president of the court, then the king, assassinated in 1792. The twins died much later, the tea drinker at eighty-three, the coffee drinker at eighty-five.

The story circulates with no verifiable primary source. Its form is that of the legends of the discovery of coffee: an experiment too well constructed, whose moral always lands just right.

Professional training document, L'Histoire du café, anecdotes section; form of the story analyzed in LC ch. 7

The method sheetsMethod sheetBoiled coffeeThe common manner of the cafés of London in 1722 and of the American colonies before 1800, still widely followed in Norway in 1922

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