Mason is trying to wake up. The nearest coffee is in the cook-tent. »Pray you,« he whispers, »try not to be so damn’d,— did I say damn’d? I meant so fucking chirpy all the time, good chap, good chap,« stumbling out of the Tent trying to get his Hair into some kind of Queue. The Coffee is brew’d with the aid of a Fahrenheit’s Thermometer, unmark’d save at one place, exactly halfway between freezing and boiling, at 122°, where upon the Wood a small Arrow is inscrib’d, pointing at a Scratch across the glass Tube. ’Tis at this Temperature that the water receives the ground Coffee, the brew being stirr’d once or twice, the Pot remov’d from the fire, its Decoction then proceeding. Tho‘ clarifying may make sense in London, out here ’tis a luxury, nor are there always Egg-shells to hand. If tasted early, Dixon has found, the fine suspended matter in the coffee lends it an undeniable rustick piquance. Later in the Pot, the Liquid charring itself toward Vileness appeals more to those looking for bodily stimuli,— like Dixon, who is able to sip the most degradedly awful pot’s-end poison and yet beam like an Idiot, »Mm-m m! Best Jaraoke west o‘ the Alleghenies!«— a phrase Overseer Barnes utters often, tho‘ neither Surveyor quite understands it, especially as the Party are yet east of the Alleghenies. Howbeit, at this point in a Pot’s life-cycle, Mason prefers to switch over to Tea, when it is Dixon’s turn to begin shaking his head.
Thomas Pynchon: Mason & Dixon, 1997, Chap. 48
»Can’t understand how anyone abides that stuff.«
»How so?« Mason unable not to react.
»Well, it’s disgusting, isn’t it? Half-rotted Leaves, scalded with boiling Water and then left to lie, and soak, and bloat?«
»Disgusting? this is Tea, Friend, Cha,— what all tasteful London drinks,— that,« pollicating the Coffee-Pot, »is what’s disgusting.«
»Au contraire,« Dixon replies, »Coffee is an art, where precision is all,— Water-Temperature, mean particle diameter, ratio of Coffee to Water or as we say, CTW, and dozens more Variables I’d mention, were they not so clearly out of thy technical Grasp,—«
»How is it,« Mason pretending amiable curiosity, »that of each Pot of Coffee, only the first Cup is ever worth drinking,— and that, by the time I get to it, someone else has already drunk it?«
Dixon shrugs. »You must improve your Speed…? As to the other, why aye, only the first Cup’s any good, owing to Coffee’s Sacramental nature, the Sacrament being Penance, entirely absent from thy sunlit World of Tay,— whereby the remainder of the Pot, often dozens of cups deep, represents the Price for enjoying that first perfect Cup.«
»Folly,« gapes Mason. »Why, ev’ry cup of Tea is perfect…?«
»For what? curing hides?«
[…]— into the morning, Scribes carry ink-pots and quills and quill-sharpeners, in and out of Cells of many sizes, whose austerities are ever compromis’d by concessions to the Rococo,— boys in pointed hoods go mutely up and down with buckets of water and kindling,— cooks already have begun to quarrel over details of the noon meal,— in his rooftop Bureau, an Astronomer finishes his Night’s reductions, writes down his last entries, and seeks his Mat,— Vigil-keepers meanwhile arise, and limp down to the ingenious College Coffee Machine, whose self-igniting Roaster has, hours earlier, come on by means of a French Clockwork Device which, the beans having been roasted for the desir’d time, then controls their Transfer to a certain Engine, where they are mill’d to a coarse Powder, discharg’d into an infusing chamber, combin’d with water heated exactly,— Ecce Coffea!
Thomas Pynchon: Mason & Dixon, 1997, Chap. 53
