Tuesday May 11th

Today I had my first “real” cup of coffee. Almost.


I should have prepended that statement by saying that while I am not enough of a coffee-snob to totally dismiss the utilitarian benefits of ease contained within a brewed pot of Folgers or Maxwell House, both international travel and living in the self-proclaimed café capitol of the United States has definitely broadened my palette to the point to which I now regard the drink that is produced by extracting the essence of the grounds from mass-marketed tin drums through a Black and Decker coffee maker is, at best, a rather watery substitute for that which is garnered from micro-roasted beans finely ground, and then steam-pushed through a bail.


So, having said the above, I now rejoin the narrative in progress. In Richfield there are (to my surprise) two establishments which serve what I consider to be “café quality” coffee. The first is an actual stand called Katie's Cup that is located in the parking lot of a local appliances store. On each of my two previous visits to Utah, Carrie and I had stopped off here in the hopes of getting a drink that more closely approximated the ones that we were accustomed to getting back in Seattle. While both the quality of beans and technique used in constructing the drinks both left a bit to be desired, at the very least the desire to go above and beyond was there, and we did end up getting drinks that one could at least label as being a “Latte” and a “Cappuccino” (The second is a place called “The Cove” that I will review tomorrow). Plus, in their defense, Coffee culture is not quite as ingrained in Utah – especially in small town Utah – as it is in Seattle. So the fact that there are such places there is to be applauded, even if there could be improvements to be made.


But I, once again, digress. On Sunday both shops were closed, which is probably to be expected. However, yesterday, on Monday, both shops were again closed, which was more than a little bit of a downer, since I had gone without “real” coffee for the past two days. Today, however, I finally was able to sit back and sip my quad espresso with vanilla, and even though the shots were pulled a bit too long and there was a tad too much vanilla flavoring in it, I still proclaimed the entire affair “good.”