A note on Rodney's coffee

[saffronhouse]

Those Kona beans Rodney is quaffing in every other story: unless he has just gotten back from Maui or Kauai, or is best buds with someone who imports specialty coffees (see, e.g. esteefee's glorious Fair Trade stories), Rodney McKay is not drinking something he identifies as Kona beans. They're a bit like fragments of the true cross; many, many

Comments

[tesserae_]

many, many more are sold than are grown

Yes, it's somewhat like Chianti; Chianti is not a large region, and can't produce enough grapes to press a tenth of what's sold as Chianti outside of Italy...

[saffronhouse]

Ah! Did not know that about chianti, and I'm laughing. Oh, the traps for the unwary!

[anonymous]

[saffronhouse]

Heh. Oh dear, I am ranting, aren't I? You know, it's those times when something just snaps (very definition of a rant!) in this case, three bags of Kona showing up in three stories in a row. And One raises her shaking fist towards heaven ....

[thistlethorn]

LOL Sometimes we just have to raise the shaking fist toward heaven.

At least yours was funny and clever. Mine was just a bit petty. *wry grin*

[hoktauri]

Oh, thank you for this educational post! I always want to learn more about coffee, but it's one of those 'some day' things, when I have the time.

Personally, I like the image of Rodney being a wannabe coffee-diva, and not actually knowing what he's talking about. :-D

[saffronhouse]

Oh yes--I would certainly argue it's in in character for Rodney to be hyper-aware of what he's consuming!

[saffronhouse]

Yum!

[panisdead]

I think that might be shrift's "Weapons of Some Distraction"--there's a scene where he eats a spoonful of instant to hold him until they get to the grocery store to buy more coffee. *shudder*

I have a belief that Rodney the coffee snob is complete fanon, but off the top of my head the only supporting evidence I can think of is that scene from Season One where Sheppard says something about how Rodney should "stop drinking eleven cups a day." So let's just say that my personal canon is that he doesn't give a shit as long as it's not decaf. ::g::

[saffronhouse]

Oh, yeah, I think it's fanon: that he's a coffee fiend, right, that's what we have in canon. (like Daniel Jackson, Hollywood shorthand for an academic.) My feeble justification for writing him as knowledgeable about coffee is that it's as much a part of geek culture as his knowledge of the actresses who played catwoman in the 60's. But it's an indulgence. Oh dear, like so much of my writing of dear Rodney.

(and someone on DW recognized that story: it's "Intersections" (Kaneko?)

[excellency]

There is also the insidious "Kona blend" which is commonly seen and many people probably think means "a blend of Kona beans." Which is sort of marginally true, in the way that "chicken soup" has to have had at least one barefoot chicken wade through the hot water at some point. I don't think Rodney, or any other self-respecting geek who can figure out a percentage concentration, would bother paying extra for the word on the label.

[saffronhouse]

Yeah, when I first, first started to get into coffee, years before the steep slide into my current intolerable snobbery, even then I goggled at the marketing cajones of the "kona" blend.