Moody Brews
If I’m not walking alone, I’m usually walking with someone. A relative. A co-worker. A female friend I’m anticipating is anticipating me being her ex someday but knowing nothing lasts forever, I relax and enjoy the ride. And when the question that inevitably comes up on a walk comes up, “You wanna get a coffee?” followed by, “Sure, where?” and then, “Doesn’t matter,” I react. Eyebrows go up. Mandible goes down. It matters.
When I first moved to Toronto, I was naive. Remember sitting in the back of the school bus, grade five, days before something called an election, and the only reason you took an interest in it at all was because it gave your elders a topic of conversation while they stabbed at their pork-chops? That, and because each of the three teams (Canadian) was distinguished by their own pretty color. So there you sat, on that seat made of unknown bus fabric playing political pundit, as if you knew better. Mind you, the arguments didn’t go much further than “Liberal rules!”, “NDP sucks!” or the veritable conversation closer that brought another’s mother into it, but that’s politics. And naivety.
Back in the day, Sneaky Dee’s (Bathurst St. and College) looked to me as a place to avoid. Run down. Comfortably seedy. A place where people without self-respect or money would go (so here I am). I was wrong. What it is is a rough around the edges Tex-Mex transplant with heaping southern breakfasts and the best coffee in town. I’m sitting with my cup now. My cup. A first personal rule in coffee drinking: take the drink in white china, something with weight, something that does degrade but very slowly, something with a handle to hold and a saucer that gives that coffee-bar clink when you set the cup down. It also provides a rim to stack your empty creamers, milkers and sugar pacs on…give your table that jukebox era Boulevard of Broken Dreams feel. Elvis, pass the Sugar Twin. Because if coffee drinking has anything to do with addiction, mid-term cramming sessions, and taste, it also has to do with atmosphere.
The sun is pouring in from the main College Street entrance, turning everyone between myself and the front windows into a chewing silhouette. High noon and the room is lit like a student film, or better yet an Eastwood film, where the bar manages to avoid anything as cheery as midday sun. Good. Because right now this cuppa Greek is perfect. Greek. It’s as much as I can learn from a busy waitress, though a partially educated assumption tells me it’s not the age old traditional Greek variety, known as Turkish coffee in other circles. Mine is foamless and without bottom-caked sediment, two staple features of Greek coffee, as is the brewing method. When Greek coffee is made, the grounds are in fine powdered form, supposedly the finest ground of any style. From here they are added to a small amount of water and sugar for sweetness in a long-handed brass pot called a briki. Like espresso, foam is king, and so following a slow boil (5 min.) the pot is removed from its heat source the moment the foam creeps its way to the briki’s rim. Pour, distributing even amounts of foam to all cups before topping off, avert eye contact in anticipation of possible incompetency, allow sediment settling time, and enjoy.
If Greek at all, the coffee here is due to the product rather than the method of preparation. No briki, just a bulbous glass pot. Nothing fancy, but once in a while I prefer it. This isn’t Starbucks, and it isn’t Lettieri. There are times for refined cafe pleasures and times to pitch Take Five and whatever Josh Grobin sings in favor of Rocket Man and Hard to Handle. Coffee is like friends: you call on different ones for different reasons.
Admittedly, Sneaky Dee’s brings back memories of basement apartments past. If this was a Dickens novel, a hollow-eyed phantom would be reminding me how nothing I ever hung was at right angles and that sorry, but low lighting does not make dust disappear. I can’t help but feel relaxed. Rock tumblers and take-out containers fight for breathing room behind the bar while shelf space is time zoned between oversized citronella pails and sucker-filled fishbowls (where are the kiddies?). What’s left crosses flea market smorgasbord with Antique Road Show rejects: a hailstorm of misshaped menuboards, all-season X-mas lights, and a giant blue flyswatter. I look at a top shelf behind the bar and wonder what gets used more, the silver threaded sombrero or the game of Pictionary under it.
I believe the mouth can be influenced by what goes in the eyes and ears. If coffee is comfort food, then its taste should also be complimented by its environment. It’s a package deal, and the benefits are real. Uncork an 84 Chablis in the loading bay of a Sears Clearance Center and you’re likely to think that something is missing. Likewise with coffee. In the end, it’s all about suiting your mood with your palette, and hanging your hat where it feels right. Not a bad way to kill an afternoon.
