C is for Coffee
Sylvia's favorite drink in the whole world is coffee and when she has a cup of some new kind of bean she does this little tasting ritual, like she's a wine connoisseur or something, and she writes down her comments in a little black notebook that she always carries with her. Two whole shelves in her kitchen are devoted to coffee; the bottom shelf of her big bookcase is is crammed with volumes about coffee and maps of Ethiopia and Java; and, besides two electric grinders, she also has a solid brass espresso machine from Italy that took her six months of saving to afford. She often goes to this little cafe on the east side of town, where they get weekly shipments of raw beans from South America, and the family who runs the place treats her like another daughter.
