The Perfect Cappuccino Movie

I don't have very many coffee related DVDs on my shelf except for Black Gold, which I have previously blogged about, and Paul Bassett's 13 part TV series called Living Coffee, which has helped me in the preparation of my coffee at home - including my choice of cups! I suppose some DVDs in my collection feature coffee/cafés in someway, like Rik's Café in Casablanca or the railway station tea room in Brief Encounter (plus the strangest looking coffee contraption towards the end of the film that I later discovered was called a vacuum pot), but now I'm getting off track...

This morning a new addition to my collection arrived: The Perfect Cappuccino. I've just finished watching it this evening and really enjoyed it. The film is an hour and a half documentary following the journey of the film maker in search of a decent cup of coffee while asking the question of why people settle for a mediocre cup. While the film speaks from an American viewpoint it is quite easy to relate to what is being said by anyone whose life is surrounded by brands, mass marketing and consumption. That said, the movie does bounce back and forth a bit from the U.S. to Italy - the home of espresso and the cappuccino.

A large part of the film examines the ubiquitous nature and goings-on of Starbucks as aposed to small coffee chains or independent unique coffee houses. And while the film doesn't totally slam the mermaid it does set up space in your head for you to do that yourself. That said, the public have a lot to answer for in the fact that they continue to feed the animal - or do they not realise the animal is feeding them?? I digress again. Much of the documentary features the predicament of a small cafe (that seemed to be creating the reality of community and not just the experience of it) as it faced legal action from the bux over the café's name: DoubleShot.

The film will give the average coffee drinker a good introduction to the wider world of coffee without getting bogged down in the stuff that coffee geeks love. What I also liked is that it was filmed, scripted, directed, edited, etc by one person! The only thing that I don't think Amy Ferraris did was actually make any of the coffee - though she did recieve a grant to live in Italy for a year to study the cappuccino!!!

Because it is an independent film it made the price of it a little higher (plus shipping to Ireland almost doubled that!), but that is a price I am willing to pay to support a project like this - plus because it is independent it can say what it likes about globalized coffee companies.

The film has been playing in a number of places across North America and elsewhere. It hasn't been shown publicly here in Ireland yet, but I'm in the process of figuring out with the film maker as to how to do that!

Here's the trailer to whet your appetite.

Almost Famous

It's been a couple of weeks since I've been able to get down to the Bald Barista, but I made it this evening. As usual, with not much time to spare before they closed, I ordered a couple of drinks.

I watched my espresso pour like dark honey into the cup then immediately took a sip as I stood at the counter. The beans were just roasted six days ago. I'm really getting into quality, fresh espresso. Delicious.

While I was waiting on my latte the barista (one of Buzz's co-conspirators in the campaign to bring quality coffee to Dublin) said to me, 'Do you by any chance write a blog about going to coffeehouses?'

I was stunned! On two accounts: first that my cover had been blown (the give away was that I mentioned racing down to the cafe after putting the kids to bed - I guess I must have put that in a previous post). I was also stunned and quite flattered that a coffee expert read my blog.

I said to the barista that I'd blog about this, but in all my giddy excitement I forgot to ask his name - you know who you are, the guy behind the counter from NZ who does have hair.

All this goes to prove that you should really think about what you write in a blog as you don't know who is reading...and when you might meet them. Fortunately I've got nothing but good words for the Bald Barista cafe and all the staff.

Talking about going public...

Sometimes people seem more than willing to make a public declaration of what they believe (or don't believe). Sometimes this is achieved by being unwittingly invited into one end of a phone conversation.

As I sat reading my book, enjoying my latte, another customer in the cafe who was sitting a couple of tables away answered his phone. His end of the call went something like this:

"Hello....yes, that's right.....sorry, who is this?.....No, I'm not interested.....No, I've tried this stuff before and it doesn't work for me......Well the whole idea of spirituality and.....no, it's kind of like one of those pyramid schemes....No, I don't need to..............."

I was intrigued and very curious as to who was on the other end of the phone call. Religious groups and pyramid schemes??? Could this be some sort of indulgences for the 21st century?

Anyway, the phone call ended with the guy giving a brief summary of his feelings towards religion which amounted to "hating organized religion because it was so closed minded."

Obviously that's not a new statement. It's been said thousands of times before. But as a person of faith with a few minutes to spare I decided to ask myself the question as to why so many people think and feel that way.

Firstly, lets get out of the way the notion of appealing to the fact that the church you or I might belong to is pretty disorganized anyway. I don't think this would help. But I can't help wondering in an ironic way how much thought and open minded analysis is actually put into making a blanket statement about such a huge, historical movement?

However, I think I understand what he was probably saying between the lines. It would be quite easy to list a handful of issues that many people would accuse "organized religion" of being closed minded about - although they probably mostly revolve around sex: who can have sex with whom; when can you have sex; what happens after you have had sex; and so on. But I can't help thinking that these and other topics are, at best, secondary issues in matters of religion and faith. If we were to take a moment to look at the primary issues I think the perception of closed mindedness could be dramatically brought into question.

Speaking from my religion - Christianity - at the heart of my faith is an ascent to these beliefs: that somehow out of complete and utter nothingness a supernatural personality, that we have come to name as God, spoke, and life and all that it means to be alive came into existence. Then several milenia latter following numerous attempts to figure out life (to varying degrees of success), this same divine power in some incredible way (God only knows how) was enfleshed and stood on the dirt that he had created. Many of us came to know him as Jesus the Christ. Then after a few years of preaching, teaching and just being, many influential people thought of this Jesus as espousing a far too liberal view of faith and had him killed. But that's not where the heart of my faith ends. (Get ready, folks. This is the point at which it turns mind blowing.) Within a short weekend that dead god-man was resurrected - not like some sort of ghostly apparition, but full on flesh and blood! And not only that, but this resurrection was a sign of a future event guaranteeing that we too would one day, somehow (there's that word again) also be resurrected from the dead!!!

I can't help thinking, how much more of an open mind do you need to believe something like that?