Bryggkaffe

Submitted by Jamie Cohen

I am usually a tempered person when it comes to most things with occasional bouts of indulgence. But caffeine in my day to day is measured and moderated on a daily schedule. Dating a partner with significant research interest in sleep and sleep hygiene, I am on a rigid no caffeine after 2pm or else I face the wrath of a sleepless night ( or worse, my partner being right). I like to have my first cup whenever my partner wakes up and chooses the method of coffee brewing of the day. I s it a pour over day? French press? Mocha pot to expel the demons residing in our colons? Are we feeling rushed? Well, we can always default to the espresso machine. The rare and coveted second cup sometimes comes after lunch or perhaps a coffee excursion, otherwise known as, the reason to leave the house on a nice day. Both cups are savored to the last drop. Accounted for. And that’s it.

However, on my last trip to visit a friend for a few weeks in Sweden, I learned the true depth of my depravity. There, the coffee is truly bottomless. Think of the quintessential American diner – glossy mugs brimming with the hot brown elixir. A waitress, settled into life, yet chirpy, asks, “can I warm your cup sweetheart”? But instead of a diner waitress it’s my friend’s roommate, your typical young scandinavian, light haired and eyed and unquestionably hip. He’s asking rather rhetorically, in his bounciest Swedish-accented-English, whenever the coffee pot goes empty, “should we make another, no?”. I have so many fond memories of this, albeit at the time, I found this shocking.  Following this friend to band practice one evening, I was amazed that it began with a firm demand for coffee to be brewed before practice could commence. Or when I arrived one evening from a weekend trip to find the collective sitting around candle light, eating cheese, and before I could put my bag down, I was offered a mug of coffee. Each morning I woke up to fresh coffee in a thermos next to the coffee pot (swedes are allegedly quite particular about the temperature) and rarely in my prolonged stay there did I ever find it empty at any hour of the day.

I was absolutely feral for the unfettered access, availability,  and endless supply of brewed coffee. Hot, steamy, brownish-black liquid oozed into my psyche. In the morning, afternoon and evening. And since my body was in a constant state of dysphoria with the limited daylight hours ( and limited light within those limited daylight hours), I found the passage of time marked only by cups of coffee consumed. No matter the time of day, I wanted more. More! More! More! Maybe even with a little milk as a treat!? 

There was this one Friday afternoon where my friend and I didn’t know what to do with ourselves. At around 5pm we rode our bikes to Solde, a coffee shop on the canal that consistently gets rated as the best in town to form our own opinion. It’s pitch black outside when we arrive; it has been that way for a few hours already. I can’t recall what I ordered, but it’s served in a little silver coffee carafe. In the ambient yellowish glow, that cozy and dramatic aura scandinavians have perfected, my eyes dilate –  I am absolutely rabid. I can’t recall the subject of conversation we had while sitting in the cafe, I just remember buzzing and hand gestures, excitement, heart palpitations. A few hours later we arrived back at the apartment shrieking and vibrating, talking so fast our Swedish counterparts probably had trouble translating us – if we were even coherent at all. I wanted to jump up and down and across all the couches in the living room. I doubt I slept that evening.  

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One of my many listless mornings before starting work, I stumbled into a bakery to read a few pages of my book. Salivating at the smell of a freshly brewed pot of coffee, I poured myself a cup. Shiny and adorned with a few glossy bubbles, I could almost see my desperate reflection in the black pool, practically foaming at the mouth. Bringing the cup to my lips, I was taken by a particularly memorable bout of euphoria. Chocolate and cherry hints, bright, but not too acidic and perfectly tempered. I could almost feel the rivers of dopamine flooding their receptors. After the thrill had passed, pawing my empty cup, I texted my friend, asking her if it was a faux paus to get refills. Needless to say, I did not wait for a response.

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I passed many gray and overcast days like this, warmed by the endless drip of coffee, bouncing with unnatural vigor while biking across the suspiciously utopian city, thinking only of my next cup. I visited almost every coffee shop of note in Malmö–and while I would judge their metal by the quality of their espresso and pour overs (occasionally biased by the saffron buns), after I went through the exercise of meaningless ranking I heedlessly downed cup after cup of brewed coffee (bryggkaffe). While Europe is usually known for its espressos, the strong, black, bryggkaffe, drip coffee, is the most commonly preferred preparation of coffee in Sweden. The simplicity of it is refreshing.  No, meticulously weighed beans, no fancy machinery, no perfectly apportioned serving size, just coffee brewed in a standard drip machine; effortless and unfussy, embodying the Swedish ethos of just enough.

But why have I deprived myself of this simple pleasure back home? Is it my ingrained American desire for choice, free will, individuality in my choice of brewing method?  Maybe the ease of it would enable me to sip with reckless abandon. However, since returning home, I have only fond, albeit mildly blurry, memories of my stay. I have loosened my caffeine rules and accepted the buzzing, bouncing she-demon I can become at heightened caffeine levels. I have taken with me a new truth about myself and my deep love and yearning for the simplicity of coffee, brewed strong and served black.