NOW The N Moment
COFFEE TIME By Guillaume Jan Illustration Gaëtan Heuzé
THE SUN RISES OVER THE LIFFEY, ITS DARK WATERS RIPPLING IN THE GENTLE WIND. The first employees head
to work, eyeing the sun as it peeks out between two trailing clouds. When they pass a coffee house or tea room, they are amorously inspired by the warm, round fragrance issuing from the entrance. In recent years, in the early morning, the heady scent of coffee can be inhaled just about anywhere around Dublin. This is a new phenomenon, as the Irish are some of the world’s biggest tea consumers. Nevertheless, though they remain quite attached to their tea time, the coffee revolution has clearly taken hold of the island. On Capel Street, a sign reads, “With enough coffee, anything is possible”. A stone’s throw away, another window proclaims to be
the site of the “coffee of your dreams.” The décor is rustic and chic – wooden floor, wooden tables – and the clientele on this spring morning is rather young. “Ten years ago, you couldn’t drink anything except instant coffee in Dublin,” explains Ann, my neighbour at the counter, a pretty redhead with green eyes. “Today, coffee houses sell all kinds of coffee, and a new specialty shop opens somewhere every month.” Not to mention Nespresso’s Machines and Grands Crus, which are seeing spectacular success across the country, as the Irish are now clamouring for high-quality coffee. This lust for better beans is so powerful that Dublin was chosen by the Specialty Coffee Association of Europe to host its annual event, World of Coffee. Last June, the who’s-who of the coffee world – including coffee giants like Nespresso – gathered in the Irish capital for a symposium, an exhibition and the World Barista Championship. But how can this coffee-culture boom be explained? The manager of another coffee house tells how she quit her job in finance to open her shop in 2011. “I discovered ‘good coffee’ in traveling to other European capitals,” says this thirty-something Dublin native. She believes the coffeemania is born of the city’s becoming the European Silicon Valley starting in the 2000s, playing home to companies and workers from around the world, each bringing their culture and coffee habits. Americans want a good Americano. Australians prefer “flat white”. Mediterraneans expect a flawless espresso. And all of them want goodquality coffee in their cup. Going deeper into the country’s history, we discover that Ireland already experienced a coffee vogue in the 17th and 18th centuries, before tea took over in the 19th century, ultimately becoming the near-exclusive beverage (other than beer and whiskey, of course). Near the famous Trinity College, Louisa Earls added a café upstairs above her bookshop, Book Upstairs, in 2014. And what beverage prevails there? “Customers tend to drink coffee in the morning and tea in the afternoon,” replies the bookseller. “In fact, the two drinks are complementary, rather than competitive.” So why choose sides, when you can enjoy both? “Coffee or tea?” is no longer an existential question! n
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