Sacred Grounds

I like to greet baristas with the following phrase: "Hand over the coffee and nobody gets hurt." This elicits a variety of responses ranging from knowing smiles to detached I've-heard-it-all-before-pal blank stares to handing over the contents of the cash register.

Readers of this blog know that I'm a big coffee drinker/addict/snob. I blame Coffee Labs Roasters in Tarrytown, New York, for this character issue. And Redeye Roasters has continued this trend in Hingham. Every week at the Farmer's Market I tell Bob Weeks at his coffee truck/Garden of Eden that he's nothing but a glorified pusher (thankfully he'll be opening a shop in the coming months!).

Anyway, with coffee on the brain I thought I'd take this opportunity to share some of my favorite coffee quotes with you. If you have others, by all means share them! Remember, it takes a village -- preferably one on a small hill in Kenya that is known for its shade-grown coffee beans.

“Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?” Albert Camus

“Last comes the beverage of the Orient shore, Mocha, far off, the fragrant berries bore.
Taste the dark fluid with a dainty lip, Digestion waits on pleasure as you sip.” Pope Leo XII (1760-1829)

"Starbucks says they are going to start putting religious quotes on cups. The very first one will say, ‘Jesus! This cup is expensive!’” Conan O'Brien

"As soon as coffee is in your stomach, there is a general commotion. Ideas begin to move...similes arise, the paper is covered. Coffee is your ally and writing ceases to be a struggle." Honore de Balzac                                              

"It is inhumane, in my opinion, to force people who have a genuine medical need for coffee to wait in line behind people who apparently view it as some kind of recreational activity.” Dave Barry

“Give a frontiersman coffee and tobacco, and he will endure any privation, suffer any hardship, but let him be without these two necessaries of the woods, and he becomes irresolute and murmuring.” Lt. William Whiting, US Army (1849)

"Without my morning coffee I'm just like a dried up piece of roast goat." Johann Sebastian Bach

“Black coffee must be strong and very hot; if strong coffee does not agree with you, do not drink black coffee. And if you do not drink black coffee, do not drink any coffee at all.” Andre Simon

"I hate decaffeinated coffee. It's useless brown water." David Letterman

"Why do our men trifle away their time, scald their chops, and spend their money, all for a little base, black, thick nasty bitter stinking, nauseous puddle water?" 1674 Women's Petition Against Coffee

"Black as the devil, hot as hell, pure as an angel, sweet as love. That's the recipe for coffee." Talleyrand

"I never drink coffee at lunch. I find it keeps me awake for the afternoon." Ronald Reagan

Caffeine is my shepherd; I shall not doze.
It maketh me to wake in green pastures:
It leadeth me beyond the sleeping masses.
It restoreth my buzz:
It leadeth me in the paths of consciousness for its name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of addiction,
I will fear no Equal:
For thou art with me; thy cream and thy sugar they comfort me.
Thou preparest a carafe before me in the presence of The Starbucks:
Thou anointest my day with pep; my mug runneth over.
Surely richness and taste shall follow me all the days of my life:
And I will dwell in the House of Mochas forever.
Author Unknown

On why good coffee should be served at church: "The church is God's house not Maxwell's House. Tim Schenck