GOOD COFFEE _ SI R, — As a lover of good , coffee I
was pleased to read in Leslie Adrian's column last week that there is at least one retailer with an imaginative appre- ciation of the coffee he sells.
The encroachment of soluble and instant coffee Made from the cheap, harsh Robustas is threatening to drive the better blends off the market; and there is a danger that the drinking of fine coffees will soon be confined to the esthetic few.
I was sorry to see that Mr. Higgins did not stress the importance of drinking freshly roasted, freshly ground coffee; for even the best blends lose- their piquancy and flavour soon after, they are roasted and ground. No host would serve his guests with flat champagne, yet—through ignorance, admittedly -- -he will give them stale coffee to drink with their brandy and cigars. Perhaps Mr. Higgins will extend the ,service he gives to his customers by selling them fresh coffee in the exact quantity they need for any particular occasion : to keep a shelf. of fine coffees would be impracticable.
.1 understand from Mr. Higgins's remarks that he puts Santos coffee among the best coffees. Personally, l find the Brazil coffees dull and placid by themselves, ,though they arc excellent in the better blends; I prefer a good to medium Kenya or Tanganyika coffee that has some body and bite to it. To class these African coffees (as Mr. Higgins seems to do) as .'ordinaires' is to be unfair to them.—Yours faithfully,
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