Jacob Grier

Oliver Schwaner-Albright of The New York Times asks if milk is coffee pollutant number 1:

Is pouring any kind of cream in your coffee a categorical mistake?

Coffee purists would never, ever add dairy to their coffee, and they would sooner drink General Foods International’s instant Hazelnut Belgian Café than add soy milk. After all, we’re now in the age of microlot coffee, when beans are harvested and handled with the same care that goes into making wine, and the flavors of an exceptional cup of coffee can be as layered and complex as a glass of pinot noir. Cream would just ruin it.

If it sounds snobby, consider this: would you dab a Peter Luger porterhouse with ketchup? A slab of well-aged beef needs nothing more than salt, pepper and a good char. There’s nothing arrogant about leaving the Heinz out of it.

I’ve always been a half-and-half partisan. (I grew up on the West Coast where cream is the standard; I still don’t understood why New York is such a milk town.) But in the last few years I’ve tasted some outstanding coffees from roasters like Blue Bottle, Gimme, Intelligentsia , Stumptown and Terroir, and I’ve been converted to the cult of black coffee. With exceptions made for cappuccinos, dairy is no longer an option.

I give in sometimes, mainly when I’m desperate for caffeine on an airplane with inevitable weakened brews. And I’ll occasionally go for Vietnamese coffee with sweetened condensed milk. Otherwise, molesting the bean with cream and sugar is completely off the table.