The tastings

Three cups on a bone board, twenty-two minutes, ending on the minute.

You sit at the corner table. Three coffees arrive together and you taste the plant’s story in three stops: where it was found, where it was first farmed, where it went afterwards. Nothing is sold to you. At the end you are given three cards.

• 00:00You are seated. Two questions, and nothing else asked.
• 00:01The board arrives. Three cups together, under no glass, no fog.
• 00:02Cup one — where the plant was found.
• 00:08Cup two — where it was first farmed.
• 00:14Cup three — where it went. Then back to the first cup.
• 00:19The cards, and a fourth if you want the room.
• 00:22That is twenty-two minutes. The shop is open; stay as long as you like.

Six of the rarest coffees of the year, poured four times a year.

Of the twenty-two the house chooses, six are never shipped and never sold by the bag. They are poured here, in the room, on the amethyst tray, for forty minutes. Members are asked first and pay for the evening when they take it.

There is no clock in the room. A house named for a time keeps time carefully; it simply does not ask you to.