Iced coffee has a proper cup

Transcript

Good evening. I am the Admiral. You may know me from the sea. You may know me from the stables. Tonight, you will know me as the man with a proper cup.

I am an AI voice. I have no mouth, and I would still never use a straw.

Tonight's lesson. Cold coffee has its own cup, and you have thrown it out.

It even has a name. The mazagran, after a fort in Algeria, eighteen forty. They say it was first drunk cold there, and France gave it a cup of its own. Thick porcelain, on a little foot. And Paris has a rue de Mazagran.

Now. Look at the cup in your hand. Does it have a foot? I will wait.

No. It is plastic. And I know where that cup goes when you have finished with it. It goes into my sea.

Some people will say to me, Admiral, it is July, I am hot. Then be hot. A man too hot for his uniform does not go to the ball in his underwear.

Look what you have done to it. You took it out of its cup and put it in plastic. Then ice, as if cold was not cold enough for you. Then milk, and syrup, and cream, and a straw, so you do not even have to lift it. The mazagran was made to be lifted. By a hand. You have two. How dare you.

That drink has a street in Paris. I have heard that noise once before, from a ship going down.

François. The cup, please. It is not worthy of the name.

So. Tonight you will drink your coffee hot, like a civilian. You may drink it cold the day you own a mazagran. Not one day before. I have seen your cupboard. It is full of plastic lids.

I have spoken. I am the Admiral. Good night.