What are your Coffee & Tea related memories

I was lucky enough to have lived during the period when many US cities were still a bundle of ethnic neighborhoods and coffee houses were THE place. In the Turkish neighborhood you found coffee so thick and sweet you ladled it, instead of pouring it. In the Italian neighborhood you found ornate steam espresso machines, glistening on the back counter and reflected in the shining mirror. In the Polish neighborhood you often found fruit syrups to add to your coffee, cherry or orange or raspberry or strawberry.But none of those places was the Coffeehouse, the home of folk music and rebellion, of ideas and dispute punctuated by musical interludes that gave you time to reflect and often a new perspective.One of my favorite Coffeehouses was Patches 15 Below.The entry was down 15 steps into the basement of an old building, a single light extending from a stanchion above the door. Patches, of course, was Spotty Lickle (fullname Jarrett Spotswood Lickle) and he and his wife Liz ran a place with no alcohol or drugs, but great teas, coffees and entertainment. On poetry nights I would get up and make a fool of myself but for the other days of the week, the fare was folkmusic and the occasional jazz.Patches was one of the television pioneers, originally appearing as a buckskin clad singer and story teller, later after moving to WBAL and WJZ to end up with almost a dozen different children's programs. In this time before Sesame Street, Liz's hand puppets and Patches' stories were a staple.The coffee selections were not that broad and you were pretty much limited to coffee or espresso, but the atmosphere, the heady nature of the place and time all seemed to work together. That was a time when lots of folk were doing the coffee house circuits and I remember a young songwriter named John Denver as well as a young singer named Emmylou Harris stopping in. Another kid that came by on his way to the Cellar Door in DC was Don McLean.But folk music faded away and the coffeehouses disappeared from the scene for awhile. The newest rebirth as Charbucks and an internet portal may even have a broader selection, but the feel and warmth of the 50-70's Coffehouse is gone.

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Immigration has been a problem Since 1607!

As a grad student, a group of us would often drift over to "George and Harry's" (if I remember the name correctly) for coffee and cheesecake.Things are different now, and starbucks does not appeal to me.

Tea: irrelevant I can't drink tea I have an allergy to it.Coffee: Never drank much coffee until I went to fight in the Viet Nam war. Been drinking coffee at a major rate since. Always drink it at breakfast time, but many times at all hours of the day. Prefer it black with sugar.Edited by bluescat48, : spelling

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other

During the hot summer months, Iced Tea was always available. It was cheap, refreshing and easy to make.Dad would bring home the big gallon sized glass jars that the Deli got for mayonnaise and mustard and ketchup. Mom would wash them out and we used them to make sun tea. Sun tea is easy, you put tea bags and water in with the cap holding the end of the strings, then put it on the porch in the sun. In a few hours the tea was ready and sweeter, more flavorful then anything else in the whole wide world.As kids we would run back to check and see if it was done, watching it change from clear to buff to sandy brown to mahogany. When the color was just right, a golden brown with a hint of orange, we'd run in the house to tell mom it was ready. She'd bring it in and pour it into the big glass pitcher.She'd get out the ice trays and we would run them under water, hold down the tray while she pulled up the lever, fill our glasses with ice cubes and listen to the cracks and crackles as she poured the tea over the ice. Then we would go out and sit on the steps to drink, leaving the glasses sitting on the porch when we ran around to play.Edited by jar, : No reason given.

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Immigration has been a problem Since 1607!

Baltimore in the late 40s and 50s was a great place to grow up. In that time before airconditioning, doors and windows were almost always open during the hot summer months. As the temperatures rose, activities moved into the shade during the day but outside as evening came on. Except on Saturdays.Saturday was the day that the steps got washed. Saturday was a time for iced tea from a sweating pitcher in tall glasses but never until the steps were washed.The street lamps were gas and there was a lamp lighter who actually came around to tend them. He had a small ladder that was narrow at the top and hooked over the arms of the lamp. He'd climb up and wash the glass and trim the mantle and then light the lamp. We'd follow along for a few blocks and hand him the bucket of water, or run inside and refill it when it was low.One wonderful thing during those pre-airconditioning days were the screen paintings. People would paint landscapes and cityscapes and seascapes on the screens. During the day they were visible and acted as a privacy feature as well as reflecting light back outside, and when you looked at a house the windows might show flowers or forest or cows in a field, things that were seldom seen. Life moved with the temperatures, in winter coffee helped hold off the bitter cold that was most of the house except when standing on the grate in the floor that let the warmer air rise from downstairs, and in summer iced tea was available all day long.

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Immigration has been a problem Since 1607!

I grew up in the only Christian family in a Jewish neighborhood. I guess I was in middle school before I found out that the lions didn't eat all the other Christians.A few blocks north of our row house was the "Deli".Now it was not like what passes throughout most of the country for a deli, this was a true Jewish Deli.There was the great oak barrel of pickles and you stuck your hand down in the brine squeezing them to pick out the biggest, firmest pickle you could find. On the counter was the aluminum tray of Coddies (cod fish cakes) and saltines and folk helped themselves and snacked on them while browsing the store. I always suspected they were delivered on Mondays and Wednesdays and on Tuesdays and Thursdays they simply turned the uneaten ones over.The rolls of fly paper hung from the ceiling as the big ceiling fans turned slowly giving the illusion of a breeze but mostly simply mixing the smells and the hot, humid air.At the farmost rear corner of the Deli was an old wooden table littered with newspapers in Hebrew where older men gathered, some clean shaved, others bearded, all speaking at the same time in a mixture of English and Yiddish. Often in the mornings they would have a plate with a half eaten Bureka sitting in front of them and as their hands slapped the table the small white cups of coffee would dance in the saucers.The Deli roasted their own beans and you could tell when coffee was being roasted from a block away. The whole neighborhood took on the air of expectancy when the coffee was roasting and people walking on the street raised their heads and sniffed the air, their destination forgotten as their paths converged for that cup of just roasted coffee.As a kid, I was not allowed coffee, it would stunt my growth, but Mr. Blumberg would always give me a small glass filled with milk with just a touch of coffee added, and would tell me "don't let your parents see that" in a voice that everyone in the deli heard. But as a child, I knew it was "our secret" and I would take my glass to the back and sit at the end of the table trying to be as near invisible as a goy can be at a table filled with adults in a Talmudic Dispute.Eventually mom and dad would call me and everyone at the table would stop talking and look at me. As I'd gulp down the last of my "coffee" and run to catch up I'd always hear someone at the table say "Such a good boy."Little did they know.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

My first memories of coffee are from the Mennonite church when I was a preschooler. They had their Dankfest when the harvest was finished instead of on the official date. All through Sunday School we could smell the coffee cooking. When we finally got to go down to the basement to eat, the coffee was served from giant enamel pots that were more like buckets - but us kids weren't allowed to have any.My mother always let us drink tea, as far back as I can remember. She used to buy Red Rose tea leaves in a brick that sometimes had picture cards of birds for us kids to collect.One of my mother's aunts used to serve us tea when we went to visit her. She was diabetic, so she'd give us saccharine pills as tiny as pinheads instead of sugar. To me, it didn't taste sweet at all - it tasted like sewing-machine oil.We moved to the city when I was six and about that time my parents discovered instant coffee. It looked like mud and smelled and tasted worse, so I never learned to drink coffee until my late teens. Instead, my cousins and I experimented with different teas - Formosa Oolong, English Breakfast, Irish Breakfast, Earl Grey, Lapsang Souchong, Gunpowder Green, Russian Black....Edited by Ringo, : Splling.

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“If you had half a brain, wouldn't you have realized after the second time, that it was you, not God?” -- riVeRraT

Growing up in a big city during the 40s and 50s was wonderful. At that time a child could still go most anywhere and be safe, no one hurt children, it just wasn't done.My fathers office was in what at one time been the carriage house for one of the town houses that sat around Mt. Vernon Place and often he would take me to work with him. Sitting in an Insurance office with parents and grand-parents and aunts was not the most exciting thing in the world, particularly when you are seven or eight and there is a whole world waiting just outside so after the first hour or so I'd ask if I could go exploring.Mt. Vernon Place itself is a great cross with the Washington Monument (the first one dedicated to George Washington in the Nation) at the center. It had a circular stairs inside (that always smelled bad) and you could climb the worn steps to the top and look out over the roofs of the buildings to the harbor down the bottom of the hill.The Square was filled with statues and building with beautiful windows and pools and fountains and places to explore.Then there was the Peabody Conservatory and Library.The Peabody sat on south side of the square and you could hear the students practicing their music from the open windows, an enticing cacophony of scales and songs and the rap rap rap "No!" of the teachers. As you entered the front door there were often exhibits on the left and the 'information desk' where you always had to stop before you could go look at any of the books.When I first went there they lady at the desk said I was too little to go into the "Stacks" where the books were kept. "How big do I need to be?", I asked."Well", she said, "You need to be tall enough to see over this counter."So I found an old wooden milk crate and dragged it all the way over and stood on it and was tall enough to see over the counter and she said if I really wanted to read the books that much I must be old enough. But the stacks were way too high and sometimes you had to walk right near the edge and there was just a rail and I was scared and so the lady would come with me and hold my hand and help me find the book and I would take it down to the tables and read it and always take it back to the desk when I finished.At the very bottom of the hill was the harbor and the boats came in and docked at Pratt St and along Light St. On the corner of Pratt and Light streets sat McCormick and Company, the spice folk. When they processed spices the whole area smelled of cinnamon or clove or garlic or coffee or teas. I also wandered in there and they would let me take a tour and I got to see how they taste teas and try it myself and they gave me a little button I could wear on my collar that said I was a tea taster and that I could slurp when I was tasting but not all the time or at the dinner table when there were guests.

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Anyone so limited that they can only spell a word one way is severely handicapped!

Somebody else's life seems so much more exotic than our own.

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“If you had half a brain, wouldn't you have realized after the second time, that it was you, not God?” -- riVeRraT

.....and it's all the fault of someone on this board.Someone provided a link which had a video and they said you had to wtch really closely, can't remember what for. I was sitting with my nose about three inches from the screen with a mug of coffee in one hand. Suddenly some screaming creature filled the screen and me, my computer chair and my mug of coffee all tipped over backwards. For some strange reason, the coffee hit the pure white, newly painted ceiling and I lay there on my back watching as it dripped onto my face, thinking "What a waste of a good coffee". We still have marks on the ceiling cos hubby still hasn't repainted.

Sometimes on the weekend we would all pile in the station wagon (Smushed Caterpillar Green and Yellow Chevy Belair ) and head out to the "KoffeeKup Diner" for dinner. It was an old Pullman Dining Car in front with some added on in the back, all glass and stainless and still with the B&O logo beneath the windows.When you went in there were booths across the front and a long counter with stools, stainless edged with red vinyl seats that you could sit on and spin and the big folk sat in a booth and all the kids sat at the counter on the stools, high up, even higher than the heads of the adults in the booth, and you could look out across the parking lot to the cars and trucks that were going...where you never knew...but they were going there for sure.At one end was a Great Wurlitzer Jukebox, a thing of beauty and bubbles and lights and if you were really good GPop would give you a quarter and let you play 5 songs. We would stand before the machine flipping through the list of songs and I would read the lists to the little kids and they always got to pick... from the littlest to the biggest.Once they made their selection I'd put the quarter in and let them push their buttons to pick their record. A shiny stainless arm came out, the records rotated until it would reach down and pick one, then gently place the disk on the spindle. The tone arm would swing out and stop, pausing before it gently lowered down to the revolving platter.Then it was back to the stools until the record ended, when all of the little kids would run back to watch it change records.The Wurlitzer was a source of constant amazement and joy. It had tubes with bubbles flowing that changed colors and cast colored patterns that danced across the stainless wall. When it was in all its glory, all thought of food was forgotten as you bathed in its wonder.Edited by jar, : appalin spallinEdited by jar, : wordsmithin

They didn't have Wurlitzer Jukes here , here they were made by Seeburg. As a child I always wondered why the records played sideways on the juke while flat at home? Childhood memories ooh!Edited by bluescat48, : spelling & punctuation

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There is no better love between 2 people than mutual respect for each other

I hate coffee, can't stand the taste, and can't understand how anyone else enjoys it.My only memories of coffee are the couple of times that I've ordered iced tea and some dimwit waitron brought me iced coffee instead. Both my wife and my ex-wife say that the face I made when I drank it was priceless.Nasty stuff.

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Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat