Cruising with coffee

WHAT WOULD a summer cruise be without coffee?  There is no ambrosia, no manna from heaven, that compares with a steaming cup of coffee sipped first thing in the morning in the cockpit of a yacht in a pretty anchorage.  New life begins each day with the rousing aroma of coffee.

It was John G. Hanna, yacht designer and author, who maintained that you can make good coffee on even the simplest of yachts. “I cheerfully endorse the statement that perfect coffee can be made in a tea kettle, when you let it boil the right way,” he said. “The moment it reaches a full boil, snatch it off the hot spot and let it simmer a moment before you add the cold water.  Reason: continued boiling would carry away in the steam the very volatile oil on which the pleasant aroma of coffee depends; yet the solution must come up to full boiling temperature, at least briefly, to extract the full flavor of the bean.”

When he talks about a tea kettle, Hanna means the old-fashioned standard coffee pot — “a pot, equivalent to a kettle, completely free of all percolators, drippers, or other fancy gadgets. The same thing that is official equipment in many millions of American homes, regardless of the increase in the plethora of complicated coffee concoctors, a shape evolved by experience of generations — a truncated cone, broad on the base, it does not upset easily, takes up the minimum of space and is easier to handle and pour from than a kettle.”

Hanna’s method of coffee-making, presumably, was to add some ground coffee to water in a pot, bring it to the boil, and add a dash of cold water to the top to settle the grounds.  Ever since coffee drinking began, there has been this question of how to separate the grounds from the liquid coffee.  I’ve never tried the cold water trick, but I imagine you’ve got to be careful about how much cold water you use, otherwise you end up with cold coffee also.

I have read that if you simply leave the pot alone, the grounds will settle to the bottom after about five minutes. Another piece of advice I’ve seen is this: “ Just before you are ready to drink, crack a couple of raw eggs and drop them in the pot. Stir it around and pour the coffee into your cup. The egg congeals and collects the coffee grounds! Feed the egg and grounds to your burro so he has the energy to plow your fields!”

I guess you could use a fine-mesh tea-leaf strainer to separate out the grounds, and I know people have tried discarded nylon stocking for the same purpose, but with what success, I don’t know.  Anyway, the point is that the preferred beverage is distilled from freshly ground beans and water that is not allowed to boil for more than an instant.  This ought not to be beyond the capability of sailors with enough gumption to handle a sailboat and navigate it to a safe anchorage, although I do know one who, disdaining what he calls the esoteric mumbo-jumbo of coffee concoction, drinks coffee made from those soluble coffee crystals prepared by Folgers and Nescafe. One small spoon of dried coffee crystals dissolves in seconds in hot water, and you’re done.  Tellingly, though, deep here in Starbucks country, he doesn’t go around boasting about it.  

 Today’s Thought

When we decode a cookbook, every one of us is a practicing chemist. Cooking is the oldest, most basic application of physical and chemical forces to natural materials.
— Arthur E. Grosser, Professor of Chemistry, McGill University.

Tailpiece

“What’s the matter with your leg?"
"I went to a seafood buffet last night and pulled a mussel."

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)