INTERNATIONAL COFFEE DAY - Happy Coffee Day! Coffee, Literature, and More!
8:00:00 AM
Hello everyone! Today, September 29th, is International Coffee Day! As you all know very well, I'm quite the coffee fiend. I named my blog after the liquid gold, and even earned myself the senior superlative of "java junkie" my senior year of high school. My love for this little bean knows no bounds. I even took a tour of a coffee plantation high in the Puerto Rican mountains this summer, and drank what was arguably the best dang cup of coffee I've ever had -- fresh from the roaster, beans picked and dried just days prior. The stuff was so fresh and delicious and pure, it converted my mother (a staunch purist and strict tea drinker, face puckering at the slightest sip of coffee at the bitterness) into a coffee drinker.
Coffee has a long and fascinating history in the world, and somewhere along the line, a match made in heaven was forged between the delicious ichor and the wondrous magic of the written word. Coffee and literature have a love story for the ages, and when Milena from Signature (a website by Penguin Random House dedicated to books and culture) reached out to me about colaborating on a post for International Coffee Day, I didn't have to be asked twice!
After exploring Signature, it was clear to see that there is a great deal of care and research that goes into each report on books and modern culture. We live in a millennial age of the internet, where graphics are some of the most interesting way to share content. As such, Signature put together an infographic that breaks down the complex and vibrant history of this drink made from steeped roasted beans and the words between pages. I mean, whoever the first person was to merge coffee shops and bookstores and libraries, I owe a large debt to them.
My local Books-a-Million cafe was the spot where I spent my junior and senior year in high school doing homework and editing the yearbook between submission dates, writing my senior project and all the while being fueled almost entirely on caramel macchiatos and dirty chai lattes. Now in college, each major library on the campus has a Starbucks inside it, with other standalone franchise locations sprinkled across campus. Off the beaten path are some independently owned cafes within walking distance from campus. One of my absolute favorites is Catalina Cafe, a beautiful industrial-looking cafe that operates out of a garage and is the perfect place to go for some house-made pumpkin spice sauce in my cold brew and some delicious fig and prosciutto toast. It's the perfect place to bring my laptop and notes and spend an afternoon studying, the perfect ambiance and amount of humdrum that isn't too distracting.
It's evident that coffee and literature are just meant to go together. Signature breaks that down in this infographic, and they even feature a FREE eBook version of the complete guide, which you can download here. If you're itching to get your hands on a good book while you're getting caffeinated, check out Signature's list of 13 Books for the Coffee Obsessed.
I hope you guys enjoyed learning about the history as much as I did, perhaps while sipping on a nice coffee drink of some sort and contemplating the roots of the relationship between two richly storied things! Don't forget to check out Signature's pairings of books and coffee, and download your own guide to the history of the brew!
0 comments