The New Aficionados

 

 Whatever she was boiling smelled very interesting, but unfamiliar.
            She looked up at the returning heroes, and said, “look what Thaga gave me!”
            Ralph and Maeve did look at it.
            “What is it?” asked Ralph.
            “It’s a coffee pot!  I made coffee for breakfast!”

☕

            “Surprise!” said Ramona.

            “I am surprised,” said Ralph. “What do you do with it?”
            “Well. You drink it. I had it in Thaga’s kitchen,” said Ramona.
            “Is it like soup?” asked Ralph, coming closer to smell the steam from the spout.
            “No. It’s like tea, but it’s not tea, it’s coffee. It’s toasty tasting and wakes you up a little. In the morning, like if you have a hard time getting your eyes to really open, it helps. That’s what she says. So I tried it, and I liked it!”
            “How do you make it,” said he.
            “You have to get a certain kind of beans, or seeds. Then you roast them until they are dark brown. You can do it in a pan over the fire. I didn’t have to because she had some already roasted beans and shared some.
            “Then you have to grind them to powder almost, but not quite. I did it on my grinding rock, the same one I pound hazelnuts on. After that you put water in the pot and the pounded coffee beans and boil the pot for a little while, until it’s dark enough. Then you set the pot aside and let everything settle,” said she.
            Maeve tapped the pot with her big beak and said, “it’s pretty! I like blue and shiny blue is the best!”
            “Don’t singe your feathers, Black Leg,” laughed Ralph.
            “Evermore,” gronked Maeve, stepping back a little.
            Ramona set the coffee pot on her little log table to settle for a short while. (She doesn’t mention minutes, because she doesn’t have a clock!)
            Twigg appeared, having followed his nose to the cooking fire. Cherry followed and then the puma bros.
            “Now, sometimes people have coffee with cream, or sugar, but we don’t have those things, so we’ll just have it black. I hear that is the best, but I’ll decide after I try cream and sugar some other day.
            “Who wants to try?” said Ramona. “I have some new cups that Ooog made too!”
            “Me! I’ll try,” said Ralph.
            “Me too,” said Maeve, looking beady eyed and eager.
            “Maybe,” said Twigg. Cherry was paying no attention.
            Berry and Bob smiled their secret cat smiles, waiting to see the reaction to this new thing at the cooking fire. They were also thinking of the potatoes and eggs in Ramona’s big flat pan.
            So Ramona poured a cup for Ralph.
            “It’s hot! Just little sips at first,” she said, though he drank hot soup all of the time.
            He took a couple of little sips. Ramona waited.
            “Yes! I like it! It’s not like anything else, is it? I don’t know how to describe it, but your word ‘toasty’ is pretty good, Mona!” He grinned a big happy grin and winked at her.
            She poured some out for Maeve too. Maeve stuck her beak in. “Hot,” she said. But then she kept drinking it, hot or not.
            “Good,” Maeve said from inside the cup.
            Then she put just an inch of it in another cup and handed it to Twigg. He sniffed it and gave his mother a puzzled look. Then he took a little sip.
            “Weird,” said Twigg. “It’s too hot, and it tastes too brown!”
            “OK, honey,” said his mother. “You don’t have to drink it.” She took the cup back from him.
            She poured some into a bowl for the cats to try, and being agreeable fellows, they did try, but they didn’t seem to want to continue drinking it. Then Cherry accidentally tipped their coffee bowl over, but they didn’t care.
            “I’d like another cup,” said Ralph, who had already finished the first one. So she poured him another one.
            At last, Ramona poured herself a cup of coffee. There were a few grounds in her cup because it was from near the bottom of the pot. But she didn’t mention that. She thought she might look into getting a little strainer for the next pot of coffee.
            Finally, they all had the fried potatoes, and the eggs and breakfast was over.
            “I can sure see why people like coffee so much,” said Ralph. “It’s one of those things isn’t it? It doesn’t grow out here in the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest, but maybe we can work out a deal with Thaga and Ooog for more!”
            “I’ll bet Ranger Rick drinks coffee too,” said Ramona. “And of course, Millicent.”
            “Hm,” said Ralph.
            “Mhm!” said Maeve, taking off with renewed vigor, soaring upward to the tree tops.