from Hacker News

The Pleasures and Pains of Coffee (1830)

by ptio on 6/20/14, 5:22 PM with 37 comments

  • by njharman on 6/20/14, 6:23 PM

    "This coffee falls into your stomach, which, as you know from Brillat-Savarin, is a sack whose velvety interior is lined with tapestries of suckers and papillae. The coffee finds nothing else in the sack, and so it attacks these delicate and voluptuous linings; it acts like a food and demands digestive juices; it wrings and twists the stomach for these juices, appealing as a pythoness appeals to her god; it brutalizes these beautiful stomach linings as a wagon master abuses ponies; the plexus becomes inflamed; sparks shoot all the way up to the brain."

    That is some damn fine writing there.

  • by xefer on 6/20/14, 8:01 PM

    Balzac's galley proofs seem like a testament to a life of dedicated heavy coffee drinking:

    http://www.themorgan.org/collections/collections.asp?id=365

  • by hownottowrite on 6/20/14, 11:08 PM

    I recommend starting at the top and working your way down piece by piece, over coffee of course. Lots and lots of coffee. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/31565/31565-h/31565-h.htm

    And if you like the translations, I should add that most were completed by four women. In particular, Ellen Marriage who published under the name James Waring.

    http://balzacbooks.wordpress.com/translations/

  • by mathattack on 6/20/14, 6:19 PM

    I think Balzac was on to something. :-) I like how he quotes Brillat-Savarin. Others are here. [0] My favorite is the one that kicks off Iron Chef, "Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are."

    http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/jean_anthelme_br...

  • by Gobiel on 6/20/14, 6:29 PM

  • by scoot on 6/21/14, 11:20 AM

    It was curious to see the reference to cold-brew coffee. I didn't even know it was a thing until a couple of days ago when I saw this article in a freebie newspaper:

    How to Make cold brew coffee at home http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/foodanddrink/how-to-make...

  • by devindotcom on 6/20/14, 6:53 PM

    Ah! I think this was recently reprinted in the "Intoxication" issue of Lapham's. Very interesting essay in a very interesting magazine. That one also turned me on to the "Coffee Cantata" of Bach:

    http://coldewey.cc/post/49474192760/bach-ei-wie-schmeckt-der...

  • by tejaswiy on 6/20/14, 7:20 PM

    How much of this is pseudo science?

  • by Netcob on 6/21/14, 12:43 PM

    "I'm not an addict, I'm a connoisseur!"

    "Last night a meth connoisseur took my wallet and my mobile phone!"

  • by benatkin on 6/20/14, 7:26 PM

    Funny, this is the same year the Mormon church was founded. They abstain from the consumption of coffee.

  • by gregschlom on 6/20/14, 10:41 PM

    For French speakers out there, here's the original version: http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Trait%C3%A9_des_excitants_mode...

  • by nkozyra on 6/20/14, 7:00 PM

    Balzac's story makes me wonder if I'll make it to 50. I'm not quite at his level, but I'm not far behind.

  • by guiomie on 6/20/14, 7:08 PM

    He refers to a french "cafiot" coffee ?? I googled it but couldn't find anything. Anyone knows what it is ?

  • by calt on 6/20/14, 6:06 PM

    Does anyone have a plain text transcription? I'm having trouble reading that scan.

  • by hiphopyo on 6/20/14, 6:32 PM

    Do check out the "CAFFEINATED" documentary as well while you're at it:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OecTZBjFvw#t=259