In which, it turns out, coffee is anything but simple.

"Espresso is probably the most intolerant method of preparation of any food or drink in the world."
—James Hoffmann

I originally intended to call this coffee cup, red^‡. It was to be a look at how the serving of coffee influences how we perceive it in terms of flavour and enjoyment. There's been some study of how environment influences taste, and I have a memory of a study in which coffee tasted sweeter when drunk from a red cup. ¹ I'd done some experiments myself and found that there was some truth to this; that coffee flavour and enjoyment is influenced by the cup it's served in. This process of crossmodal perception is well documented. In my case, a red coloured heavier earthenware cup was sweeter, fuller-bodied, more satisfying, more alive and characterful. As I began to write it ran away from me, as things do, and

people are more important than cars.
rivers are more important than roads.
we've over-extended ourselves.

let's buy up every other house in the suburbs
and bulldoze them and plant trees.
why do we want to live so close together?
let's build a highway of forest
that connects every backyard to every other backyard
every childhood to every other childhood
across the earth.
why do we want to live so far apart?

where are the walkways in our parking lots?

A mudu is a unit measure in Nigeria. It is typically an enamel bowl of 1.33 liters capacity. It is used to measure beans, garri, rice and similar foodstuffs. It is rarely used to measure liquids. The practice is to heap the stuff being measured until it forms a cone. This gives a mass between 1.13 and 1.5 kilograms depending on the substance. Things like garri and rice would weigh more since the individual grains are smaller.

This morning, I was wondering where the word comes from. It is a