..You’re a coffee enthusiast living in the Netherlands and you just ordered some coffee from India. You have never tried coffee from India before so you can’t wait to taste it. Obviously you’ll have to wait because FedEx didn’t fly there at the time and boats were dependent on the wind. Six months later, your coffee arrives, but the beans look a bit funny. They look swollen and more pale brown instead of green. You roast it and brew it, but just like you expected it doesn’t taste very good. It’s very full, round and smooth but not in a good way. There’s no acidity, no brightness, nothing exciting.

So you give it to some of your friends and they all love it…weird.

That’s what it must have been like to be a specialty coffee person in the 18th century. In a way, little has changed.