David, East of Java!

OK… I’ll admit that the title of today’s post will be lost on 95% of you, but it amused me (and that, after all, is the main purpose of this little journal).

It (the title) was actually a lame reference to a lamer 1969 movie about the volcanic island of Krakatoa – more correctly spelled ‘Krakatau’ - located east of the Indonesian island of Java (ok… the film got it wrong… it was actually west of Java). Krakatoa erupted in 1883, causing one of the loudest noises in recorded history (not to mention killing some 36,000 people with the resulting lava storm and tidal waves). This movie was really only notable (IMHO) for having been the second of the genre of pre-digital epic disaster movies ('The Poseidon Adventure' being the first).

Confused yet? Indifferent, perhaps???

As always, there is method to the madness that passes for title selection here at treppenwitz. Observe:

Java = Coffee
David [heart] Coffee
David is thousands of miles East of his favorite coffee purveyors
Therefore…David is East of Java.

Get it?

[sound of crickets as hundreds of readers click away to find something… anything useful/interesting to read]

OK, for those of you who are still here (I love that in English one can still use ‘the collective you’… even when addressing one person), the purpose of today’s post is to notify everyone that ‘The Great Coffee Search’ seems to have come to a more-than-satisfactory end.

Never again will I have to coerce friends into ‘muling’ illicit bags of Peets, Community or Starbucks into the country. No more will I have to hound kind-hearted Germans into seeking out the best kaffeeroesterei in all of Hamburg. In the end, thanks to Jennifer (who only had to tell ‘A.D.D. Boy’ twice about this treasure), I have located a reliable purveyor of freshly roasted coffee beans right here in Israel!

Located north of Tel Aviv in the beautiful (but humid) town of Ra’anana, is a national treasure called Cup O’Joe (OK, they have other locations, but this is the one I visited). It is an indoor/outdoor café with wonderful (kosher!) food, seemingly clairvoyant wait staff, and most important… heavenly, fresh-roasted coffee!

While we were there, Zahava and I each sampled hot and cold examples of their dark liquid fare, and without exchanging a word knew we had finally located 'the grail'. Cup O’ Joe roasts a staggering variety of beans from around the world. And as a nice touch, they seal them in reusable tins to keep everything very fresh.

As a celebratory gesture to mark this exciting ‘discovery’, I’ll pass along a coffee tip which was revealed to me on a trip through the funky little college town of New Paltz, NY:

On a hot summer day, Zahava and I were passing through New Paltz when we decided to pop into a promising little coffee shop for a couple of iced coffees. Now, iced coffee, as many of you know, is wonderfully refreshing… but it has the one fatal flaw of becoming increasingly diluted as the ice melts. Except, that is, for some reason the iced coffees from this little coffee shop held their own… maybe even got better… as we sat in the August heat, sipping our drinks! How was this possible?!

The secret turned out to be the most obvious thing in the world (isn’t that usually the way?). Instead of pouring the end of each pot of coffee down the drain before starting a new one, the baristas poured these precious remnants into ice trays and froze them for use with Iced Coffee! Iced cofee made with frozen coffee cubes!!! Genius!!!

Anyway, now that I find I'm only an hour’s drive (instead of thousands of miles) East of a reliable supply of ‘Java’, I can truly say that I want for nothing here in my new home (excepting, of course, for a visit from my extended family abroad)!

As a reward for anyone who may have made it this far… I have a few G [please don’t use search engines to find this] Mail invites to give away. A pleasantly worded, grammatically correct, sentence will earn you or a friend an invitation.