The Quiet Luxury of Well-Made Linen

Every morning I make coffee the same way. Not because I am rigid about ritual — I am not — but because I found a method that produces exactly what I want and saw no reason to change it. A stovetop Moka pot, medium-fine grind, medium heat, removed from the flame the moment I hear the first rush of coffee entering the upper chamber.

The beans are from a small roaster in Virginia that I have been buying from for twelve years. They source single-origin lots and roast to order. My current preference is an Ethiopian natural process from the Yirgacheffe region, which has a fruit-forward quality that the Moka brings out into something close to dried cherry. Not sweet — the coffee is not sweet — but there is a suggestion of fruit that I find in no other preparation.

I drink it standing at the kitchen window. This is important. The chair and the table come later, for reading and for work. The standing window moment is something else entirely: an orientation to the day. A few minutes of genuine stillness before the demands of everything else arrive.

Drusiano drinks his with a little steamed milk, which I have long since accepted about him. He thinks my method is austere. I think his is forgiving. We have had versions of this argument for forty years. It remains one of the conversations I most look forward to.