The Morning Cordial — first act of the bohemian day
The Poet's Black Coffee
DrinkDocumented☕facile10 min
An ink-black coffee, French-pressed, served scalding hot and barely sweetened. The brew of studious vigils and gray mornings.
Why this dish? Baudelaire, a chronic night owl and chronically broke, fueled himself on black coffee to write and stay awake. Coffee — an institution of romantic Paris — was his workshop as much as his drink: one composed, dreamed, and waited for money to come.
I cannot align a single verse without this black and burning liquor. When Paris sleeps and the spleen gnaws at me, I fill my cup — no milk, no mawkishness, barely a grain of sugar so as not to offend the bitterness. Drink it steaming, standing by the window, watching the city wake in the mist. That is my only morning prayer, and the most sincere.
Ingredients
- •Finely ground coffee — a good spoonful per cup (body and bitterness)
- •Spring water — to taste (infusion)
- •Lump sugar — optional, a shard (barely sweeten)
How it was made : In the 19th century, coffee was prepared à la française by infusion or decoction in a tin or porcelain coffee pot, much stronger than our modern coffees. Parisian cafés — the Café Tabourey, those of the Latin Quarter — were the offices and salons of penniless writers.