Coffee + Soy or Coffee vs. Soy?

A question out there for you folks who for whatever reason mix soymilk with your espresso, drip, press, or other form of coffee. [If you find this subject matter disgusting, please move onward to the next post, and have a nice day.]

Has anyone found a brand of soymilk that does NOT break up into curds on contact with the acids normally present in coffee? Silk brand has a "creamer" product that holds up fairly well [some sort of emulsifying agent no doubt - hopefully not high in trans-fats or anything; i'll go read the carton later], but what if I want a soy cappuccino? Or is this simply a crime against both God and Nature, and I am simply being punished for my puerile habits?

Any and all comments warmly appreciated.

The Best Coffee In The World

I'm not going to mince words, split hairs, or serve you decaf on this one. The best coffee in the whole entire world is Arabian Mocha Sanani [a.k.a. Mocha Yemen], and is roasted by Peet's Coffee and Tea of Berkeley, California. [Second place - and it's a photo finish - goes to beloved artisan tiny batch roaster Lighthouse of the picaresque Phinney Ridge neighborhood here in Sea-Town. Hell, even the Great Green & Black Satan can't seem to screw it up.]

I have brewed this coffee as espresso, through paper and gold cone filters both "Mr. Coffee" and "Melitta" style, and [best of all] in a press pot or "French Press". I've even made "cowboy coffee" with it - i.e., boiled a pot of water over a campfire and then thrown a few coarse-ground fistfuls in, straining the product through a paper towel. It holds up under any and all circumstances.

Most coffee that you drink doesn't startle you like Sanani does. Usually you start with that roasted bean flavor followed by an interesting aftertaste, or the acid burn of No-Doz, or whatever crap you dump in there. The coffee of Yemen, however, immediately comes over you like an ancient and tawny port, a smooth single malt scotch, and a good cigar all rolled into one. You can taste the unique preparation method of this particular varietal, in which the coffee cherry is dried onto the bean in the blazing Arab sun rather than pulped and rinsed off beforehand.

Drinking this coffee has all of the flavor notes one looks for in any coffee, rolled into one - the tart acid on the tip of the tongue, the creamy fatty esters on the middle, the toasty oxidation somewhere on the back and sides - and then ties it all up with a nose like a particularly velvety Chianti.

How do Peet's manage to knock this particular bean straight out of the ballpark? It's a mystery, it's magic, more art than science - I imagine it's got something to do with the excruciating care they take on timing the different stages of the roast from first crack to cooldown - like any culinary craft, it's an alchemical thing, requiring a hermetic and gnostic sort of wisdom that cannot be written down. However it is done, I've found their roast has an unbelievably long shelf life, certainly far longer than any roasted bean has any right to. By contrast, Lighthouse's roast is very immediate, very NOW - you'd better drink it all this week if you know what's good for you. Of course it's delicious enough to drink a bag full in a few days, but you don't want to rush it.

"Latte Art"

I'd like to make a confession. "Latte Art" is one of those lovely haute cuisine presentational novelties, like radish flowers, that can make one's cup just a little more enjoyable. But since it is ineffective as a substitute for good coffee, I have never given it much consideration, much less effort. When I shared this prejudice with my boss, like the good sensei he is, he replied: "These things will come in time." He did not say, "Too bad - you'd better get up to speed on it, or you're toast," nor did he say "I don't care about it much either." Rather enigmatically, he said it would come in time.

So I didn't knock myself out learning how to make those clever little squiggles, leaves, pictures of smiley-faced suns, Italian paper patterns or what-have-you on top of everyone's drink. Instead, I focused on rendering a quality beverage according to my employer's preferred specifications (which are also something as nebulous yet exact as any expectations about food can be). I made it my watchword to never be satisfied without some kind of exclamation of satisfaction from each customer - "Ahh, perfetto!" for example - "Just as I would have expected back home," as one Italian guest remarked. Every time someone took a sip of their drink and either shrugged or didn't react, I inquired if everything was all right, and whenever possible either remade the drink or memorized the person's face so I could do better next time - with the optimal goal of doing it right the first time, seeing as how you can't count on a second chance after a first impression. High standards perhaps, but without them, life loses some of its joy.

The funny thing that happened is that I started making art on people's beverages almost by accident. Or rather, I discovered that when one focused on technique for quality purposes, the art sometimes appeared on its own - perhaps this is how this particular element was discovered in the first place. I'd time the shots, position the wand in the milk just so for the right number of seconds, tamp out the few large bubbles, swirl, pour with the right elbow position and wrist action, and maybe my hand would tremble a little from having forgotten to pack my lunch that day, and there it was! - that telltale squiggle of crema on foam that said "Make that last gentle flick forward and you'll have yourself a leaf". And now I have a new highly-set ideal, designed for maximum challenge: In addition to a sigh of satisfaction after first sip, an exclamation of "Beautiful!" at first glance. So far I'd say I get that about 10-15% of the time, conservatively. I'd like to get up to 30%, but I'll happily take it one customer at a time.

Customers: You've Just Got To Love Them

You've just got to love the guy who comes up to you, spreads his hands in that "What world am I in?" shrug, and goes: "I'd just like.....a CUP OF COFFEE." As if you personally had created the entire European cafe culture to vex him. Really, it's a treat to be imbued with such God-like power. Because when I give him exactly what he wants - with reasonableness and calm - perhaps he will come to see that his negative expectations go out before him into the world and create most of what he doesn't want.

But one shouldn't hold one's breath.