My first memory of coffee was a bottle containing a very dark thick liquid. It was called Camp Coffee. The label showed a soldier in a tartan kilt and a large busby. I think that there was a tent in the background. I don't know why we had coffee of any sort because we were really a tea drinking house. Mum may have drunk coffee in the middle of the morning - I don't know because this would have been when I was about 7.
I expect that we moved on to Nescafe at some point but the next stage came via Berni Inns. When we went to the cinema in the early '60s, there was always an advert for a Berni steak meal. Soon we had to try one although I certainly had never previously had a grilled steak. There were two other important features to these meals. Sherry was served in schooners - these are large glasses for sherry and it took a long time before I realised that it was too big. Coffee was fancy, involving the options of a liqueur and cream floated on the top. It all seemed so sophisticated.
Around this time I bought a copy of Cooking by Philip Harben. I don't remember why but the descriptions of food and drink in the early James Bond books probably had something to do with it. This book contained instructions about making coffee and in the absence of any special equipment I boiled my coffee in a small saucepan. I had bought Blue Mountain, on James Bond's recommendation, from Stokes' coffee shop on Lincoln High Bridge. It is possible that Stokes was another important element in my interest in coffee - the smell as you approach the shop is wonderful. I don't know what I did about filtering that first cup but I do remember that it was disappointing. I know that I did buy a filter and papers but I don't think that I made many cups of coffee at that time.
I must have still been interested because when we married in 1965, one of our presents was an electric percolator. We were never very successful with that. I think that the problem was that we didn't really know what it should taste like and Nescafe brought out Gold Blend which was so much better than previous instant coffee that it was hard to justify the work involved in brewing ground coffee. Nevertheless we kept trying and acquired various sizes of cafetiere and for a few years we had a Morphy Richards coffee maker but I don't even remember using it.
My birthday present one year was a small Gaggia machine which really looked the part and did make OK espresso but I could never get the milk frother to work, which was probably because we had moved on the semi-skimmed milk, and in the end I sold it.
I also bought a beautiful Danish designed glass flask which works well, making 4 or five cups of cafetiere style coffee but I have finally had to accept that the problem is not the coffee nor the method of making it but my taste. I like stronger coffee than anyone else that I ever make it for. If I make it to my taste, they don't like it and if I make it to their taste, I don't like it. Most of them are happy with instant.
I have therefore accepted that I make real coffee for myself, although I will respond with alacrity to any requests.
My usual coffee is made in a single size cafetiere and I occasionally make espresso in a small stove top percolator. However, and this is the point of all this rambling, I recently tried Greek coffee on the island of Kos and really liked it. A previous trial on Crete was not so good!
I have therefore bought the necessary small pan, taken advice from a demonstration on Youtube, and can make a drink that I really like, using almost the same method that I found in the Philip Harben book nearly 50 years ago.
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