“…that fragrance which fills the soul with optimism and faith, the fragrance of the crushed beans beneath the jet of boiling water curving from the kettle, the smell of coffee.”

In Halldor Laxness’ extraordinary book Independent People, there are well over 150 references to coffee, most of them reverent. That is as it should be. Laxness was Icelandic and they are among the world’s greatest coffee consumers–along with all the other Scandinavians.

http://www.worldmapper.org/posters/worldmapper_1038_coffee_consumption_ver2.pdf

Although Swedish-American, I am closer to real Swedes in my coffee consumption. When I was a kid, I put coffee in my milk, sometimes now I will put milk in my coffee when I get a latte, but usually drink it black. There is no perfume in the world quite so warm and evocative as the smell of coffee.

So I was thrilled by the coffee shops at The Arcade. I took some pictures outside the other day, but today I am shooting inside where I combined elements from the RH Designs Coffee House and the PLAAKA Coffee Factory.  The building is from PLAAKA’s coffee factory. I just fell in love with the look of the crumbling old factory being repurposed to serve coffee. The broken down wall and patio appeals to my love of things old and worn.

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