Here is an ode(sort of) to that magic bean!  Thanks (sort of) to William Elder for entering The Coffee Shop Chronicles(click “contests” to the right of the page for details about entering)

copyright William Elder

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Espressoing Oneself

That perfectly innocent water

Should be so Presumed upon

—strained of its wriggling animals,

Life-giving Muds, screened

Of its life-sustaining Algae,

Gassed and poisoned beyond

The Death of liquid life itself,

Then boiled for Good Measure,

To drive off the last breath,

Last gasp of the pea-soup

Of Germs that surrounds us,

Swims with we humans as we

Flounder through our Attenuated Days,

Rushed, prodded, stressed, and longing

For any support, any encouragement,

Any sustenance, a Sip of Solace

—then shotgun-married by a rod

Of scalding Steam into a fistful

Of ground, pounded, brown,

Bitter Beans, lactose-milked and

Sucrose-sweetened into some sort of

Palatable, potable Balm of Gilead,

Promising relief, release, repose,

Even if only on the razor edge of

A Nerve End stretched and stretched

Again, humming with Ingested Tension

— that THAT steaming, hellish, sleep-robbing,

Teeth-grating, lip-foaming Process

Should be foisted upon very Aquavit itself is,

Among the annals of Technological

Presumptions and Arrogant Artifices

Perfected by the glib hand of Humankind,

Unrepentant, unrelinquishing, unguiculating,

— perhaps the most satisfactory use of water

Since the invention of a good piss!

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(I had to look it up, too!–thorn, unguiculator-in-chief)