Tag: Coffee

A stack of pancakes on a white plate, covered with caramel-coloured syrup and topped with whipped cream and blueberries. The syrup drips down the sides of the pancakes, and the whipped cream flows over the front edge like a thick ribbon. Many blueberries are scattered on the pancakes and around the plate. Several black sparrows are gathered around the food. One bird stands on top of the pancakes pecking near the blueberries. Two birds stand near the front-left edge of the plate, close to scattered blueberries. Another bird stands to the right of the plate, facing inward. Additional birds are flying in the sky in the background. The setting is a snowy Alaska landscape with pale, misty mountains in the distance and a cloudy, bright sky. Created and described with ChatGPT.

“Fading into Alaska” * Short Story * Tatiana Samokhina

aromatica poetica March 25, 2026

There are three of them—pancakes—on a round plate in front of me. Fluffy, with bubble craters, dark-orange toasted patches spread out like a thin spiderweb. A mountain of whipped cream holds blueberry beads, glinting slightly under the dim light of the Persian-style café chandelier. I flinch when he snaps, “Alissa?” “Huh?” I look up, a fork tight between my fingers. Across the table—Victor, my boyfriend of three years. His flat cheeks, rubicund. His mouth—a single, long line. He breaks it, …

An impressionist painting of aromas emanating from roses, lemons, eucalyptus leaves, with dots of scented colors like spices in the air. Thanks to OpenAI DALL.E for this one!

“I Never Labeled My Spices: An Elegy To Olfactory” * Nonfiction * Alice Eakes

aromatica poetica June 21, 2023

I lost my sense of smell. This nasty little virus sweeping the world, killing millions, invaded my home in January 2022 despite vaccinations and other protective protocols. My symptoms were somewhere between mild and life-threatening. I rode it out, and in the end, I discovered I no longer possessed the powerful olfactory sense that has been my lifelong companion. My first-grade teacher is responsible for my ability to identify just about anything from smell. She figured if I would eventually …

Southern scent memory: Mint Julep at the Round Robin Bar 2018 made with raspberry and strawberry infusion and garnished with cherries and a mint stalk, of course, sits on a bar matt with sunlight striking it picturesquely and a blurred out bar in the background. Wikimedia.

Five Scent Poems by Joan Mazza

aromatica poetica June 8, 2022

The Scent of Memory 12 You might think of mint as gum flavoring or what makes Polident tolerable. Sometimes it’s a scent made for savoring— candy canes on Christmas trees, delectable in cookies. Boxes full of peppermints take you back to the deep South’s mint juleps in tall glasses on your honeymoon trip. You imagined yourself with servants, not slaves, a belle in hooped skirts, eloquent and beautiful, your loving so fervent you’d never worry about breath mint. How odd …

Carvery Lunch on Sunday - image of a slab of meat carved neatly on a platter next to roasted potatoes and unpeeled garlic, set next to two ramekins of unknown substances. Wikimedia.

“Carvery Lunch on Sunday” and Other Poems by DS Maolalai

aromatica poetica July 7, 2020

Carvery Lunch on Sunday the fish was fried so thick you could crack it like a drumskin, pulled tight and hammered very hard. and the gravy on her lamb was delicious – I took some. this was lunchtime on Sunday, and we’d had a tense weekend; what can I say? sometimes you fight a little when you don’t have other plans. and I had a sick cousin and wasn’t dealing with it properly, and she had some problems as well. …

a ribbon of photos featuring Jack’s and Steamers employees posing in various areas of the restaurant.

“Jack’s and Steamers, a Neighborhood Restaurant Giving People with Disabilities the chance They Deserve” by Samantha Meddaugh

aromatica poetica February 12, 2020

Have you ever walked into a restaurant and immediately felt welcomed and right at home? For me, Jack’s and Steamers in Arvada, Colorado is exactly that. When I walk in after being gone for over three years, the aromas of coffee and home-style cooking happily lead me by the nose, bringing back memories of when I worked there as a blind baker from 2014-2016. It’s a bright blue day outside, or so I’m told, when I return to Jack’s Bar …

Photograph of glowing hazelnuts with radioactive effects!

“Like False Hazel…” * Four Poems * DS Maolalai

aromatica poetica July 22, 2019

Hazelnuts it’s beautiful; this hot hazelnut coffee, made with sweet syrup and no hazelnuts at all, tasting nothing like hazelnuts and much like the future which bangs outside, brassy, band and big. it’s sunlight and slamming the pavements, slamming the window and slamming your hands on the coffeeshop table like the clip of a closing pianolid, and you’ve gotten two messages since sitting down, and both of them have been good; delicious like false hazel. it’s a wonderful thought, isn’t …