Ristretto | Books for the Coffee Lover
Illustration by Michelle Ott
That changed this year, making it an unusually active run for coffee books. Of the dozen or so titles to released in recent months, two stand out: “The Blue Bottle Craft of Coffee: Growing, Roasting, and Drinking, With Recipes,” by James Freeman, Caitlin Freeman and Tara Duggan ($24.99, Ten Speed Press), and “Coffee Life in Japan,” by Merry White ($24.95, University of California Press).
They are two very different books. “The Blue Bottle Craft of Coffee” is a thoughtful introduction to this moment in coffee — it’s for the everyday drinker who’s curious about what goes into that cup. And “Coffee Life in Japan” is a study of the centuries-old cafe culture of Japan by a professor of anthropology at Boston University — it’s required reading for coffee’s true believers and industry insiders.
Part of the appeal of “The Blue Bottle Craft of Coffee” is found in the lush photographs and delicate line drawings that are a tribute to why print still matters. It’s a handsome volume that falls somewhere between cookbook and art book. While the book is from the minds behind Blue Bottle Coffee, and the voice on the page unmistakably belongs to the founder James Freeman (for an example, read the passage titled “A Special Place in Hell: Pod Coffee”), it’s less of a company monograph than a peek behind the curtain at what goes on at the highest end of coffee. There are sections on how coffee is grown and processed, what roasting does to a coffee bean, how to steam milk and the specifics of organic certification. If you aren’t already convinced that you should buy a good grinder, you will be soon after reading this.
The book is packed with information, but the tone is so conversational that it goes down easy. It’s true even when the book doesn’t pull punches. The section on home espresso starts off on a discouraging note (“Let’s be real: making espresso at home is expensive, difficult and time-consuming”) before giving advice you can use:
“It sounds simplistic, but the single best predictor of the adequacy of an espresso machine is weight. Heavy machines usually perform better than lighter machines. Weight implies metal rather than plastic parts, copper or brass boilers rather than steel, larger group heads rather than smaller, commercial-grade rather than consumer-grade.”
You won’t find any smart-shopper tips in “Coffee Life in Japan,” an engaging book written by the anthropologist Merry “Corky” White. The book is a comprehensive account of Japan’s relationship with coffee, which started in 1690 but didn’t take off until the first kissaten, or coffeehouse, opened in Tokyo in 1888. Named Kachiichakan, it was torn down long ago, but White includes a photograph of a monument — a blocky brick column topped by an oversize coffee cup — erected to its founder, Tei Ei-kei, in 2008.
It’s details like this that will grab the imagination of the already converted. White is an academic, and not a part of the coffee industry, but she obviously enjoys the topic and the people who populate the scene. Some of the figures are historic, but most are contemporary — Noda-san at Otafuku in Kyoto, Katsuyuki Tanaka at Bear Pond Espresso in Tokyo — and her description of going to Kyoto’s Kafekosen, one of the few where the coffee maasutaa is a woman, gives you insight into how seriously Japan takes its kissaten.
In fact, White’s cultural insight and linguistic pedagogy are her greatest gifts to the reader. She first started visiting Japan in the 1960s, and she is able to illuminate a sometimes opaque culture. On kodawari, a form of meticulous professionalism, she writes:
“Kodawari is embedded in the thing produced — it is not only in the attitude or practice of the maker but is consumed by the recipients or buyers of the goods themselves. Architecture is often cited as good ‘if you can feel the kodawari of the person who designed the space.’”
Yes, White is talking about coffee.
Of the other coffee books out this year, a handful deserve a special mention. “Joe: The Coffee Book,” by Jonathan Rubinstein, Gabrielle Rubinstein and Judith Choate ($19.95, Lyons Press), is an overview of coffee from the much-loved independent chain of New York shops, and “Left Coast Roast: A Guide to the Best Coffee and Roasters from San Francisco to Seattle,” by Hanna Neuschwander ($16.95, Timber Press), is a rundown of the leading roasters in California, Oregon and Washington. (Too bad that, just as the subtitle says, the book tilts north: there is nothing on Los Angeles, San Diego or any other part of California south of Big Sur.) Both books include brewing tips and techniques.
And then there are the slim, pretty books that you want to flip through. “A-Z Coffee: A Kick-Starter for Geeky Conversations” is from the mind of the Oslo barista and illustrator Lars K. Huse ($13, Kaffikaze). It’s a a delightfully twisted survey of what the coffee nuts are talking about in 2012, arranged alphabetically (“A-is-for-AeroPress“). Then there’s “The Craft of Espresso,” with text by Hanna Neuschwander and illustrations by Ben Blake, ($12, Clive Coffee). A comprehensive and succinct examination of that dense little drink, the book is also a pretty object, with a letterpress cover and hand-stitched binding. Unlike the other books listed here, both “A-Z Coffee” and “The Craft of Espresso” are self-published, which makes sense: D.I.Y. printing from a D.I.Y. industry.
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