"Religious Coffee"
a Verdant Heights story

by
William H. Chang

ONE

“Go on. Try it.” He goaded me on in harsh whispers, eyes narrowed at the cup in front of us. I picked it up and slowly brought it to my lips, taking the slightest sip with a quiet slurping sound. Earthy, full-bodied, slightly acidic, with a touch of sugar for taste. All in all it was a pretty bland – if not normal – cup of Sumatra blend.

“Don’t you taste it? That little patch of sour that gets left in the aftertaste.”

Once again I brought the cup to my lips, this time taking a longer sip. I couldn’t taste the hint of sour he was talking about. “It tastes fine to me,” I told him, setting the cup back on the counter. “Just an everyday cup of coffee.”

He sighed and sank back in the seat next to me. We said nothing more for the next few minutes, instead focusing on the coffee we were sharing. No matter how much I tried, the sour aftertaste wouldn’t manifest on my tongue. It wasn’t there. He, however, frowned slightly every time he took a sip. He held the coffee in his mouth for a moment, swishing it audibly around before swallowing it in one big gulp. I could tell he tasted something strange by the way his lips quivered.

“It’s so strange,” he started. “I never noticed that weird taste until yesterday when the new batch came in. It’s not like they switched blends or the company changed ownership or anything. There’s just something different about the way it tastes now.”

“Maybe it was just a bum bag,” I suggested. He took another sip, frowning once more after swallowing.

“I thought so too,” he continued, “but when I tried the other blends I started to notice that the taste in those too. It was faint, but it was there, like it’d been hiding just underneath the surface the whole time.” He paused for a moment, passing the cup to me and shaking his head. “No, it’s not a bad bag. They changed something. There’s something they must have added to make it taste different. I’m sure of it.”

I took one last, long sip, nearly draining the cup. There was a fair amount of dark coffee ground at the bottom, swimming in the little bit of brown sludge that remained. For a moment I thought I could sense something on the tip of my tongue, a momentary tingling sensation, but all of a sudden it was gone. Vanished, like a flicker of light in a dark cavern.

“Well,” he said, “I’d better get back to work.”

“Yeah, you do that, Van.” I handed him the cup, leaving a dollar and some loose change from my pocket on the counter as a tip.

As I walked the three and a half blocks from Vienna Place to my apartment building I couldn’t help but wonder about that strange taste Van was talking about. Could there have been a new ingredient added to make the coffee taste differently? And why couldn’t I taste the difference when it was so apparent to Van?

Admittedly I’m no coffee connoisseur, but I’m a woman who knows the difference between a freshly ground cup of Italian Roast and the awful instant crap Maxwell House advertises as coffee. Since first being introduced to the marvels of caffeine during my late nights in coffee I’ve been hooked on the stuff. Two cups a day, morning and evening, light clockwork. Occasionally a third to keep me going if the Way dictates another all-nighter consisting of hard labor in the studio.

Arvandor (‘Van’ as he prefers) on the other hand is a coffee guru. The guy lives on the stuff, downing cup after cup of black coffee, espresso, lattes, you name it. Only twenty-five, he knew more about coffee than any long-time drinkers twice his age. He could identify a blend, its age, and where it was grown with a single sip. Needless to say, it was uncanny.

It was already dark when I began the walk back to Vienna Place. The evening air was cold, and there was breeze blowing in from the west. As usual, there weren’t many people downtown at this hour. Most of the smaller stores had closed up for the day, leaving only a few larger places and late-night cafés still running.

Van was behind the counter, rinsing some mugs and saucers in the tiny sink against the wall. His dark brown hair covered his eyes and the running water from the faucet, coupled with the upbeat jazz playing on the café stereo system, drowned out the sound of the jingling bells above the door. I sat at the counter and glanced around. Aside from myself there were few customers – an old man seated against a window, writing furiously in a small black notebook; a middle-aged mother with long red hair seated at a table with her young blonde daughter; and a younger, tanned woman in a business suit, typing away on a MacBook. Everything minding their own business, oblivious to each other.

“That time again,” said Van, unsurprised to see me as he turned from the sink. He wiped his hands on the black apron covering his red t-shirt. “Give me a minute and I’ll brew up a bath of French Roast.” My favorite. He headed into the back room for a moment without another word.

Overhead, the music changed from the upbeat jazz to something more mellow and somber, with slow guitar riffs and haunting melodies. Something more Van’s type.

“Explosions in the Sky’s latest album. Just picked it up the other day. Really good stuff.” He returned with a CD case, a two-disc digipack with some folded artwork inside.

“Interesting,” I replied. As he made the coffee I took a look at the artwork, which was highlighted by a painting of a man in a boat, alone at sea, holding a lantern up against the darkness that surrounded him. Fitting for the music, given the feelings of solitude and loneliness it conjured. I could tell the others in the café felt it. The old writer wrote less furiously. The red-haired mother and her blonde daughter sat in silence, looking at their food as if nothing else existed. The tanned woman stopped typing, instead opting to peer out into the dark streets.

A sudden gust welled up, pecking at the thick windows. The night outside seemed foreboding, as it often did in such a small, isolated town like Verdant Heights. I’d been there for a few months, arriving the previous summer after finishing a masters program in New York. It was my first time back in California in almost half a decade. Everything had changed so much. Except me, I suppose.

The scent of freshly brewed coffee pulled me from my thoughts. I realized I’d been staring at the CD case the entire time, lost at sea as well.

Van set a mug in front of me and poured the hot coffee straight from the French press, leaving just enough room for a fair bit of cream and two scoops of sugar, which I then applied. He came around the counter and sat in the seat next to me, setting another mug down and pouring some for himself.

“Cheers to you, Mr. Crane.” I held up my mug and turned to him with a tired smile.

“And to you, Ms. Ferrelli. To another day.”

With a quick tap we simultaneously took a long sip. The warmth flowed down my throat, extending outwards through my veins into my extremities. It felt good … until I realized something was different. That tingling sensation, that little extra pinch was there for a moment, hanging on my tongue like a snowflake before melting away entirely. This time it was far more noticeable.

I glanced over at Van, who seemed to be enjoying the coffee as well as the music. His eyes were closed and his head bobbed up in down slowly. “So,” I said, trying to sound subtle, “still taste something weird in the coffee?”

He shrugged and replied, “Yeah, but it doesn’t really bother me much.” He took another sip. “I’ve been asking other people who come in if they taste anything different – regulars, like Vince and Mr. Jones over there.” He motioned to the old writer against the window. “None of them seems to notice anything. Vince even had a few extra cups just to see, and I’ve been drinking more over the course of the day. The taste kind of grows on you after awhile, like a strong drink or something.”

“Strange,” I mused.

“Why? Do you taste it too?” He seemed to get alarmed slightly, eyebrows raised.

I shook my head, not wanting to go further into things. “Nope. Sorry, it tastes fine to me. Still the best in town.”

Van grinned to himself and took another sip of his coffee. “Yeah, thanks, Robyn.”

We sat in silence for awhile, listening to the music as the slow, sorrowful tune began to pick up in intensity, building up a tidal wave of electrical harmony. Each of the three guitars played a separate piece completely different from the other, yet each complimented the others so well. Even the drums fit perfectly, like the final piece of a puzzle. Eventually the song came to its epic climax, with each instrument belting its heart out, full of emotion, full of life. It was almost hopeful, almost enough to make you change the way you looked at the world. Almost.

And then it was over. And for that brief moment between tracks, the calm before the storm, it was silent again.

“You know, I called the company that ships the beans.” He set aside his cup, empty aside from a tiny bit of leftover sludge. “I asked them about the providers, to see if they’ve got a customer service number, or some place I could call regarding the coffee.”

“What’d they say?” I asked, my interest slightly piqued.

“Apparently the company that provides the beans is in the middle of some kind of deal with another company. Like, they’re selling ownership of the farms down in South America or something. That’s what the shippers told me earlier today.”

“Think that has anything to do with the taste?”

He shrugged again. “Maybe. I don’t know. They gave me the number of the current providers though, so I’m going to give them a call tomorrow morning to ask.”

I held up my mug in a mock salute. “Good luck with that.” The mug was empty by the time I set it back on the counter. “Well, I’d probably better get back to work. I’ve got some projects lined up that need to be finished by the end of the week.”

“Paintings?”

“No,” I shook my head as I stood up to leave. “Mixed media stuff mostly. Recycled cardboard, photos, metals, and some other things. Stuff like that.”

“Oh, nice.” He stood up and collected the mugs before making his way back behind the counter. As he started to rinse them off in the sink I dropped a small pile of loose change that had been weighing the pockets of my jeans down on the counter.

“See you, Van.”

“Later, Robyn.”

April 16, 2008