Coffee! Cafe! Qahwa!

I don't drink much alcohol anymore. Coffee, though, is another matter. I start the weekday morning with a sizable cup (20 oz.) of drip coffee, sometimes with a little half and half, from the City Place Cafe (which is Moroccan owned and operated). At lunch, I usually go to Border's and sit down with a 12 oz. cup of black coffee and a book until my lunch hour is over. In the afternoon, I go over to the Caribou and pick up a small skim latte.

On the weekend, I usually just brew up a big pot of drip coffee, but if I am feeling a little energetic, I will make French press, a latte, a cappuccino, an espresso, or even Turkish coffee (yum!). That said, I do not really pretend to be a coffee connoisseur. However, for those who aspire to connoisseurship, the Washington Post today has a guide to "cupping" beans for taste, aroma, and freshness and a guide to the best brands in the Washington area.

Even though the United States has developed quite a coffee culture in the past twenty years, thanks in significant part to the sometimes reviled Starbucks, we still do not have the rich tradition of much of the rest of the world. For a hint of how cafe culture has matured in Morocco, see Laila Lalami's Café, Anyone?