Cross-cultural communication （100）　

105) Do you like coffee?
I've liked coffee since I was in high school. When I was at university, my regular routine was to have a double pork cutlet bowl at a local restaurant called “Tatsuya” in the shopping district near my university, and then go to a coffee shop called “Ichibankan” to drink a strong, rich cup of coffee.
When I traveled in Hokkaido in my medical school days, there were no good-looking coffee shops, so I didn't get to drink any coffee for about three days. There was a coffee shop in front of Kushiro Station that looked like a nice place, and I remember that the coffee they served was delicious and it made me feel like I had come back to life.

During my second year at med school, I used a Eurail pass to travel around Europe for a month, from London in to Sicily. You can drink coffee anywhere in Europe, but the further south you go, the stronger the taste becomes. I prefer a strong coffee, and I liked the coffee in France and Italy the best. In Italy, there are coffee vending machines everywhere, and even the coffee from these vending machines was rich and delicious. In the 1970s, Japanese restaurants were still rare in Europe, and when you got tired of Western food, you would go to a Chinese restaurant. After eating at a Chinese restaurant, if you ordered Chinese tea, it would cost you money, but coffee was a free service. I guess that shows how widespread coffee was at the time.

From 1980, I lived in Brooklyn, New York, for three years as a resident. In Japan, the term “American coffee” refers to a simple, weak coffee, so to be honest, I didn't expect much from the coffee in America. However, it was actually quite delicious. First of all, there was the coffee from the coffee cart that came to the hospital entrance lobby in the morning. If you order a regular coffee, they give you one with sugar and cream. On mornings after a night shift, for example, I felt as if I had been brought back to life with just one cup of this. It's true that the taste is a little lighter than Japanese coffee, but it's not diluted with hot water. I think it's probably down to the way the coffee beans are roasted. The coffee made in the nurses' station on the ward was also delicious. At night, I was often treated to sweet cakes, but of course it's better to have them without sugar at this time. Even in the cafeteria, the combination of the French toast with lots of maple syrup and butter in the morning and the sugar-free American coffee was perfect.

I spent two and a half years in Paris from 1995. As you would expect, France is the home of coffee. In the morning, I would have cafe au lait, and in the afternoon, after lunch, I would have coffee. If I needed to take a short break in the afternoon, I would buy coffee from the hospital vending machine (not canned coffee, but espresso) and drink it. So, when I was in Paris, I would drink 4 or 5 cups a day. However, apart from cafe au lait, the espresso is served in small quantities, so I never got a stomach ache. On the contrary, if you go into a cafe and have time to spare, and you want to order a large quantity of espresso, you can order a double cafe and they will serve you double the amount of espresso.

After returning to Kobe from Paris, I really wanted to drink freshly made, strong French-style coffee at home. That's why I got a Nespresso machine 20 years ago. With Nespresso, you just pop a small capsule filled with various types of coffee into the machine and a cup of aromatic coffee is ready in no time. In the morning, I make cafe au lait with the strongest type of coffee, and at other times of the day I enjoy espresso.
Sometimes a single cup of coffee can make your dreams come true♪ (Japanese pops in 1930s)

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