Her Royal Morning Coffee
Good To The Last Drip
~ ~ ☕ ~ ~
A week going by without incident would normally have made Dry Roast’s nerves settle.
A week without a certain Princess Twilight Sparkle showing up in the darkest hour of the morning desiring coffee and a little sugar was not unprecedented over the last two years, although mostly corresponding to periods of time when she was gone with the rest of her friends off on some world-saving adventure. The group had left Ponyville for a few days in the middle of the hiatus, but the next twilight did not dawn with a Twilight arising over his shop, which he was a little grateful and possibly just a tiny bit regretful about.
That is not to say his mornings were princess-free.
Princess Luna had taken to her early morning ‘slumming’ with great enthusiasm and even greater skill, seeking out the mysteries surrounding each and every piece of equipment in the store and triumphing over their skillful use as if she were defeating fierce enemies of Equestria. In fact, she was a princess productively percolating perfect product every time. The complicated espresso machine met its match, the mixer which bucked and complained under his grasp purred like a moon-kitten whenever Luna touched it, and the oven had never produced finer pastries.
Even though most of what he sold came from somewhere else, that final step from field to customer was something Dry was very proud of. The little balls of frozen dough from Sugarcube Corner still made perfect morning baked treats long before the store which had originated them opened their doors. Golden Harvest’s carrot juice was good, but with just the right touches of herbs, spice, and heat, made happy smiles throughout the summer, and mixed with the right amount of hot chocolate in the winter, kept on giving joy. And what he could do with Applejack’s apple spiced cider was probably criminal.
The beans were the best. The official method of roasting beans for the Starbuckers franchise was just one step short of charcoal, followed by ten days in a degassing chamber to release all the carbon dioxide in the poor charred beans. That did not suit Dry Roast at all. He had played with the mixture and composition of coffee beans for nearly twenty years so far, ever since he got his cutie mark helping his chemist father with the morning coffee.
He still did not use timers or thermometers to judge when the beans had reached their perfect stage. It was just a combination of touch and scent and instinct and listening for the sounds of popping to slow, sometimes driving him across the shop in the middle of an order to grab the hot beans out of the roaster with a simple spell to degass them, then feed the still toasty beans right into the grinder. His ultimate goal was to finish the process just when the bell over the front door rang, so when that customer took her first sip and gave him a smile, it would leave him with a warm sensation under his ribs for hours. It was the one aspect of coffee-making that Princess Luna struggled with, although she constantly improved under his close tutelage.
This morning, he had everything perking and cooking under Luna’s expert supervision before his scheduled departure for the mechanical exposition in Coltana Falls. It left him enough time to prepare a morning coffee for each of his traveling companions, plus enough time for Luna to scramble his thought processes in an unexpected way.
“Fare thee well, sweet prince,” said Luna once Dry picked up the traveling carrier for the coffees and crumpets. “Your quest to return with a suitable, how you say, conical burr grinder for your establishment shall be a success, for you carry with you the favor of your Princess of the Night.”
That was all the warning he got before Luna kissed him.
Once his mind slowly cleared, Dry Roast came to the conclusion that Twilight Sparkle had a lot to learn about… that. Her prospective teacher had turned away and was floating a tray of crullers out of the oven, whistling a little happy tune with her tail swishing behind her. Dry Roast took a few deep breaths while the fizzing neurons in his brain finished their lightning storm, but before he could speak, Luna turned and wordlessly pointed to the door.
~ ~ ☕ ~ ~
“I will never understand mares.”
Applejack and Pinkie Pie gave Dry Roast similar perplexed looks while they boarded the train which was to take them all to Coltana Falls, although Pinkie Pie shook it off first with a giggle.
“So is this about Twilight coming by your shop in the morning to give you hugs and kissies, Dry? Because she’s been acting awfully strange this week.”
“Ah suppose you’re the expert on strange behaviour, Pinkie,” said Applejack. “Ah was just thinkin’ things were gettin’ back to normal, for a change.”
“Luna kissed me,” said Dry Roast. He gave the stunned mares a brief glance before floating the coffees he had brought over, one coal black with a tiny squirt of apple syrup and one apple/marshmallow/maple syrup with a tiny squirt of coffee, then sat down with a thud on the train bench. “That’s not normal. She said earlier how she and Celestia used to poach each other’s romantic interests and how she was looking forward to doing that with Twilight, but…”
“On the lips or on the cheek?” asked Applejack, holding her coffee with no indication of drinking until certain more important informational activities were taken care of.
“Right square on the lips. And some more. I think. I wasn’t really thinking straight,” said Dry.
“Do you think she’s trying to make Twilight jealous?” asked Pinkie Pie.
“Think?” Dry Roast took a sip of his own coffee, flavored with pumpkin spice and maple syrup. “I quit thinking over a year ago.”
“That would be back when Twilight first started locking lips with you at the coffee shop.” Applejack pursed her lips in a deep thought that Dry Roast was justifiably afraid of where it might lead. “Begging your pardon, Dry, but I never took you for no prince.”
Dry Roast took another drink and wondered if the bar car would add a little something to his coffee so his hyperactive brain would calm down a little. “I think… Luna’s teasing?” said Dry, with as much sincerity as he could muster, which could have been measured with a teaspoon. “There’s no scandal to worry about, because she knows I won’t freak out and run to the newspapers, and… she’s a stinker like Rainbow Dash.”
Pinkie Pie giggled. “Rainbow Dash and I need to take her out pranking sometime.”
Both Dry Roast and Applejack looked at Pinkie, then each simultaneously moved just a little bit away from her, in case it was contagious. “Anyway,” continued Dry Roast, “Luna’s just being silly, and Twilight’s just sleepwalking. I really need to get away from it all, and this trip will be just what my mind needed. You two don’t want my lips, you just want me for the rest of my body, in particular, my ability to help pick out your purchases and my muscles to help carry them back to Ponyville.”
“Don’t forget yer fine sense of taste,” said Applejack before finishing off her coffee.
“Nopony else makes a marshmallow-syrup-coffee flurry like you,” said Pinkie Pie. She proceeded to bury her nose in her cup and make bubbles before slurping the sugary mess up and swallowing it all in one gulp.
Dry Roast chuckled and took a measured sip of his own coffee. “Thanks, girls. A whole day away from Ponyville and no princesses to raise my stress level.”
The train gave a chuffing cough and began to move, although there was a distant “Wait…” coming from outside almost drowned out by the noise. Then there was a sharp ‘pomph!’ that was not, because it corresponded to the abrupt arrival by teleportation of Ponyville’s newest princess and her dragon, both of whom wound up landing right on top of Dry Roast.
To his professional credit, Dry Roast managed to save his coffee during the impact, even though Twilight Sparkle was nearly nose-to-nose with him. Also to his credit, he did not use profanity in front of the youthful dragon, even when Twilight managed to step on something near and dear to him while scrambling to her hooves and moving away. He did roll over onto his belly afterward, because he was not certain if he was bleeding, but if he was, it wasn’t serious, and he certainly did not need his battle wounds inspected by a young dragon or a crazy princess.
“I’m sorry, Mister Roast,” babbled Twilight Sparkle once she had gotten her hooves under her and not on him. “It’s just the percolator broke—”
“Again,” said Spike.
“—again,” admitted Twilight. “Although they shouldn't be that flimsy and Rich’s Bargain Barn doesn’t carry anything tougher, so I thought I could go along with Applejack and Pinkie Pie on their hardware buying trip and save you the prince of the… I mean price of the tickets but you’re already on the train and it’s moving…”
“I wonder if I’d get killed if I jumped off the train at this speed,” mused Dry Roast, a little louder than he had planned.
Pinkie giggled and gave Twilight a hug, and then one for Spike. “Oh, this is just great! Dry was just telling us how Princess Luna kissed him before he left and now you can give him a kiss and we can compare how good a kissers each of you are.”
“Maybe if I tried to hit the ground running,” said Dry.
Applejack pushed her hat back on her head and nodded at where Dry Roast was sprawled out on the floor. “Well, he did say Princess Luna was a gonna try poaching him away from you, Twi, so maybe you two should practice them kisses a little so you can put up a good fight for yer stallion.”
“I could try to land head-first,” mused Dry. “That should snap my neck and keep me from feeling pain.”
“I’m not doing any kissing!” protested Twilight Sparkle. She took a long drink from her appropriated foam coffee cup and scowled viciously at Applejack. “I have no romantic interests in—” her gaze flickered over to Dry Roast, still sprawled out on the floor with his rump in the air “—him at all.”
“You could have fooled me last week,” said Spike. “The two of you were pretty locked together by the lips in the kitchen.” He lowered his voice to a grumble. “Even if it was disqualified from the pool.”
“It was an involuntary reflex, most probably caused by changeling mental influence,” protested Twilight. “In him. Not me. I’ve scanned my brain at least seven times now, and there’s nothing there!”
Dry Roast kept his mouth shut, as did the rest of Twilight’s friends, although he had the misfortune of snorting just loud enough for her to hear. Ever so slowly, the Princess of Friendship turned toward him and regarded his position with a scowl. She took another long drink of coffee and snapped, “What’s so funny?”
“Two things,” said Dry Roast. “One, that the Princess of Friendship and Smiles can be such a—” he hesitated with his word choice due to Spike’s nearness “—pain in the flank without her coffee.”
“I’ve got my coffee. I’m fine,” snapped Twilight, taking another drink and finishing it off. “What’s the second thing?”
“That’s my coffee. Or that was my coffee.”
There was a certain element of humor in seeing Twilight Sparkle with her mouth open but no words coming out. After a moment, she closed her mouth, regarded the empty foam ‘Java la Choza’ coffee container with a certain degree of repressed indignation, and placed it down on the bench with a hollow thunk. “No wonder it tasted so bad,” she grumbled.
“Sorry, Your Highness,” said Dry with as much of a bow as he could while belly-down on the floor of the train car. “You could have always brought your own.”
“I wanted to stop by Sugarcube Corner on our way, but somepony had to check their checklist a fourth time to make sure they hadn’t forgotten anything, and forgot to check the departure time of the train,” said Spike, sounding a little vindictive.
“I told you I was sorry, Spike,” said Twilight, not sounding very sorry at all.
“So what happened to your percolator at the castle, Twi?” Applejack scooted a little over on her bench so Twilight would have space to sit down, which she did. There was a corresponding empty spot beside Pinkie Pie which Dry Roast had thought about occupying, but decided his present position on the floor was far more defensible. Besides, Spike shot him a glance seeming to ask permission to be seated there, which Dry confirmed with a nod.
“It broke,” said Twilight.
Spike cleared his throat. “You taught me not to use passive voice when taking the blame for something.”
“Somepony broke it,” said Twilight, which was not much of an improvement.
“There’s only one pony living in your castle, Twilight,” said Pinkie Pie. “Unless you have a dark pony made of shadow like the one at the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters, or you’re secretly hiding a little cousin who isn’t really your cousin but a pony made out of dark magic and a blood sample and brought to life by a bunch of creepy cultists out in the Everfree—”
“It wasn’t me,” snapped Twilight. “It just… broke.”
“The basket holding the grounds snapped off,” said Spike. “Four mornings in a row. She tried to fix it but the fixing spell doesn’t work if things are broken too many times and then she tried to brew coffee while holding the whole thing together in her magic and…” He mimed an explosion, and from the way he was wiggling his fingers, fire. It seemed to be a familiar motion for Spike.
Dry really wanted to keep quiet, but could not hold it in. “Spike, do you load up the percolator the night before so all you have to do in the morning is push a button?”
“Yeah.” The little dragon looked somewhat confused. “Is that bad?”
Suppressing his alchemy training, which could have detailed for several hours just why that was bad, Dry simply nodded. “All of the ‘coffee smell’ gets away. It dries out the grounds and makes the morning coffee not taste quite as good. Apparently also,” he added with a sideways glance at Twilight, “it can leave a scent trail which leads sleepwalking princesses to graze on the coffee grounds.”
“That’s a lie!” snapped Twilight, rising to her hooves and glaring down at Dry Roast as if she wanted to use him as a rug. “Any evidence to the contrary is obviously forged by clever photographic techniques and…” She trailed off at the looks the rest of her friends were giving her, scowled again at Dry Roast, then sat down with a grumpy frown. “I disproved that theory completely, years ago,” she added in a low growl.
~ ~ ☕ ~ ~
It was just more comfortable for Dry Roast to take a seat at the other end of the train car, particularly after making a trip to the dining car and finding out all they had was instant coffee, the anti-coffee of the coffee world. He settled into his bench with a mystery novel he had read several times already, which did not make it much of a mystery, but still a better option than sitting next to the simmering princess while waiting for the inevitable brew-up.
He had just gotten to the point in his book where the hero on the train car was ambushed by the masked killer when Spike tapped him on the shoulder. Thankfully, Twilight had already drank all of his coffee, or it would have gone flying farther than the book did.
“What! Um… I mean, what is it, Spike?” Dry Roast smoothed out the book and tried to unwrinkle the pages so when his brother Rain Check brought it back to the castle library, he would not face the wrath of a frustrated librarian.
“We’re almost there, but Twilight’s being Twilight and not wanting to talk to you about shopping for a new percolator, so I thought I’d come over and ask for some pointers.” The little dragon produced a notebook and a quill, and nodded.
“Oh. That’s pretty smart.” Dry Roast ran a hoof through his mane and thought briefly. “You know, if I was an evil coffee fiend, I’d help you pick out the worst coffeemaker in Equestria so Princess Twilight Sparkle would be forced to come to my lair, hehahahaha.”
Spike raised an eyebrow ridge. “That’s not a very evil laugh.”
“You are asking me to help buy something that will cut into my sales,” countered Dry Roast.
“You know,” said Spike, tapping his quill against the notebook. “I don’t think Shining Armor knows all the specific details about—”
“You need something sturdy and foolproof,” said Dry rather quickly. “With a sealed reservoir for the grounds and one for the water. I don’t suppose she has a regular waking time to set a timer.”
“Depends on how much she’s studying the night before,” said Spike with a shrug as he wrote. “Or how much coffee she’s had in the middle of her study session.” He paused. “Or I suppose if she’s made a late-night trip to your store.”
“Mgmumph,” said Dry Roast, trying not to sound sullen. “One-button operation, rapid production of the product, and being able to lock the coffee grounds basket would be a bonus. I’d get her a syrup selection to go with it, mostly chocolate. Get a refill on chocolate syrup. Better get two if Pinkie Pie has access to your kitchen. Don’t worry about a foamer, because she dislikes too much foam. Sprinkles, but not the mint kind. Birthday sugar multicolor sprinkletts, if they have them. Some apple syrup, but just a little because Applejack pretends not to like anything in her coffee, so put just part of a squirt in, and sometimes Twilight wants a little apple flavor in hers too, but mostly in the Fall.” Dry Roast licked his lips, remembering the sweet taste of chocolate mixed with coffee and apple syrup during a particularly memorable kiss. Fall was nice.
After writing a few more quick lines, Spike looked over his list and asked, “How about something for Rarity?”
“You’d need a whole frappuccino machine for that, Spike, because the white chocolate kind she likes is really difficult to make.” He patted the little dragon on the head. “Tell you what. I’ll let you come by the store sometime and I’ll show you how to work the machine. If you get good enough at it and you still want one, you can get your own, but if you just want to use the store’s equipment for special occasions, you’ll get a far richer taste and better response.”
Spike licked his lips, and somehow Dry Roast did not think he was considering the taste of a frappuccino.
Dry is in his element here.
Huh. Sweet.
Oh you (un)lucky bastard.
NO! NO please God no!
Probably. But, if you fuck up...
I love this little guy.
A valid point.
Clever little dragon.
I'm inclined to agree.
Gee, I wonder whether Pinkie and Applejack knew that Twilight needed a new coffee maker. I bet there's totally no scheming at all going on, no siree. And Rarity totally doesn't have any nefarious plans either.
Edit:
Should probably be dries
8703801
Element of Creepy
8703801
The seventh Element of Harmony, Coffee.
Let's Nyx that idea, hm?
I think you ______ a word here. Should be
Too much work involved with thinking. Just sit back and enjoy the many smooches.
You HAD to open your mouth, Dry. Not only did she raise your stress level, but likely your pitch level.
Y'know, if you really wanted Twi to go away and stay away, you could have pointed out where she landed and suggested that she kiss it better. Porn logic doesn't apply in Georg's Equestria, so that should have been the end of that. I think Dry is starting to admit to himself that he misses his little coffee fiend.
8703563 Ours does to. I'm assuming Equestria hasn't thought of that yet.
And how!
True story, I met my first real girlfriend discussing whether or not the industrial conical grinders mounted on the espresso machines had their flavor affected by the Coriolis effect.
It's been a while, Nyx.
Long time since I've seen her referenced.
That just sounds terrifying.
Oh my god. Goddess. Goddesses.
That seems like a really questionable book to read while riding on a train.
Alas, using a percolator has become a dying art since the days when Col. Hogan and his crew used one as a radio.
You might see electric ones on Amazon on or in Bed Bath and Beyond, but letting a computer control the water temp and perking time is a lazy half-assed cheat. Like randonee bindings or waxless skis or "snow tires" or expecting 4WD to be a substitute for actually knowing how to drive in snow.
Visit a camping store if you have to, but a plain old stovetop or campfire percolator and expending the time and effort to learn it's proper use to your own personal taste is far more rewarding and satisfying than owning a thousand Charbucks franchises.
Love the PS reference. Long Live little Nyx. Buck the h8ers!
8703801
I'm just wondering how many people hate you for constantly taking the first comment.
8703892
RHJunior/Realitycheck was a brilliant author, despite his inability to let anything go, from honest constructive criticism, to "liberal bias," to responding to actual trolls, to fighting with mods. I hope Cheerilee's Class and The Great Alicorn Hunt will someday be finished, but even on his new host, he updates maybe twice a year.
8703858
Dry spent most of the early chapters worried about sexual misconduct charges. The proposed course of action would cross that line in a big way.
It's a good thing Twilight doesn't know about Dry's roasting process. I doubt she'd approve of such imprecise methods.
There's a story idea: Nyx and Stygian Break Twilight's Coffee Machine. Don't ask me for details, but the title tickles me.
Personally, I swear by French presses. Boil, grind, pour, wait, plunge, pour, drink. Not scalable to coffee shop-level production by any means, and somnambulatory, chocolate-hungry alicorns may find the process wanting for other reasons.
In any case, Twilight's going to have to face reality sooner or later. I just hope she does so before she has reason to regret waiting so long.
Technical flaw with the chapter. You *never* go from roaster to grinder. At minimum it needs a pass through a vacuum chamber to offgas, but 24 hours in a bin is considered customary. Otherwise your coffee can have weird tastes or be fizzy due to the water leeching out CO2 from the beans.
Not that I managed a coffee company or anything for nearly a decade....
8703892
I was going to mention that if you weren't.
8703916
Why did you bring up RHJunior? I thought someone else had written that story. Alicorn Hunt yes, but not Nyx?
8703916 He's also a darned good artist. He did the cover for Diplomacy by Other Means.
8703913 Tough. My story, my rules.
8703901 At home, I always woke up to the scent of our percolator making mom and dad's coffee for early morning milking, every day, rain or shine. The fun of working Grade A dairy.
8703898 Like watching "Airplane!" on a flight. (which weirdly enough, one airline did buy the rights to)
8703892 I've got a story that I've worked on once or twice called "Nyx and the Accidental Assassin" that I really should finish sometime. Heavy angest, non-Nyx point of view.
8703883 That's the one complaint I heard the most about Starbucks. No idea why they incinerate the poor beans.
8703865 It only works for things *inside* the oven. Once you get stuff into the fluffy insulation layer, it's going to char every time you bake.
8703838 He was perfectly content to do that for a year or two. Darned Rarity.
8703852 Ponyville has a high concentration of Narrativium.
8703820 fixed.
8703822 You notice that none of the villains they fight show up in the early morning, other than Nightmare Moon.
8703813 Ah, True Love's first kiss. Wait for it.
8703941
Because the darker the roast, the longer the “flavor” keeps. So that’s how they keep their coffee “fresh” despite shipping it to umpteen hundred stores.
Anyway, I’m enjoying every bit of this. Thank you for writing.
8703916
I honestly haven't read anything but Penstrokes OG Past Sins and their continual stories.
Haven't seen anything from Realitycheck since that one crack he had at some shippers got out of hand and political a few years back.
Great Alicorn hunt was pretty solid though.
8703935 Fixed. Cheating unicorns and their magic.
8703940
Nyx first appeared in Creeping Darkness, then in Past Sins. Both by Pen Stoke.
Reality Check wrote his own sequels, divergent from Pen Stroke's follow ups. They're all good.
FUCK YOU, /MLP/ AND YOUR NYXABUSE!
8703947
And the common fallacy that darker/stronger roast=more caffeine.
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Almost everything with him got political in a hurry. I actually got curious and checked in on him maybe 8 months ago? He's moved to a different site (link on his FiMFic profile), and he seemed to be doing just fine over there, far as I could tell from a quick glance. Couldn't stand him much personally, but I'm glad that he's doing alright.
I'm a terrible Sparity shipper, so now I cannot help but imagine that a decade or two down the line, there is Spike with his magnificent hoard. And the single most expensive piece there is a custom frappuccino machine.
For younger readers who may be unaware, I will explain: "Percolating" is quite different from modern drip-brewing.
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6b/Coffee_Percolator_Cutaway_Diagram.svg/220px-Coffee_Percolator_Cutaway_Diagram.svg.png
The liquid at the bottom is drawn by heat up the pipe or "straw" and spurted out over the grounds. This is called "perking." Unlike drip coffee, which runs the hot water through the coffee grounds only once, percolating cycles the brew repeatedly. This makes for a richer, more flavorful coffee.
On the downside, controlling the temperature is important. Much like when tea is allowed to steep too long and draws out the astringent tannic acids, or letting a mash tun get up to +170 F, letting a percolator get too hot and reach full boil will ruin the flavor and turn it all into bitter sludge.
French Pressed and Vietnamese Coffee have similar caveats, but I'm not qualified to speak on them. Also, preparing Turkish Coffee is tricky, but I hesitate to call it that, lest there are any Greeks nearby armed with baseball bats ready to smash my kneecaps. Loose-grounds coffee is delicious, but a politically touchy subject.
http://termcoord.eu/2016/09/coffee-andpolitics-the-battle-for-turkish-coffee/
Because He is all-powerful, must all-good, too, follow?
I judge but by the fruits—and they are bitter—
Which I must feed on for a fault not mine.
-Lord Byron
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8703992
Eenope. Alton Brown taught me that.
8703999
you are nothing compared to that Hillbe guy
I never thought of Twilight as a tsundere before. It's adorable.
I have learned far more than I thought I would about coffee from reading this story.
8703858
I'd be a little worried that Twilight would instead try to zap the problem away for good.
> “It broke,” said Twilight.
> Spike cleared his throat. “You taught me not to use passive voice when taking the blame for something.”
That wasn't passive voice. 'It was broken' would be passive voice. This is a case of attributing action to the inanimate, though.
8703822
You think Dry will become Prince of Morning Ambrosia? That might annoy Blueblood to no end.
I still say Celestia has the biggest bet in the pool. Probably under some sort of alias. Once the drama has played out and she's the only one left in there, she'll win by default. Probably by producing her own recordings of a sleepwalking Twi going down to the Starswirl the Bearded section and cuddling up with one of his grimoires.
Then the romance will truly begin!
8703992 This is *Equestrian* coffee, though. (From To Sleep, Perchance To Dream, one of my first stories so long ago)
Pony Joe went to the Parnell Pitch 5000(*) Cappuccino machine and flipped a bright red safety lever up and out of the way, before reaching for a knob. Slowly he turned it up from ‘Regular’ past ‘Strong’ and even past ‘Lethal’, stopping at the final notch. ‘Celestia.’ A howling noise filled the shop as the grinder began to grind, the foamer began to foam, and the smell of tortured steel and glass began to fill the air. Using a heavy oven mitt, he retrieved a double-hoof sized cup from the cabinet and slid it gingerly into the receiving slot. The machine groaned, and a thick black bubble formed on the spout, stretching out to the coffee cup which seemed to recoil away in fear, then hitting the bottom in a coal-black lump that hissed as it began the slow task of eating away the bottom of the cup and attaining freedom. One obsidian glop at a time the cup slowly filled, with tiny white specks in the night-dark brew that seemed to shine with the light of distant stars (or dissolved porcelain). Finally as the noises began to die, a white lump of foam dropped on top, bubbling and fuming with a hiss that resembled a dairy scream.
(*) The motto of the Parnell Pitch company was “Good to the last drop — No matter how long it takes.”
I found you new cover art.
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BTW, I admire how well researched you are on the subject at hand. It always shows in your stories.
8704228
You know the coffee is strong when you can just faintly hear the screams of the damned souls that give it its flavor.
I don't drink coffee though. Not a fan of damned souls, or the bitter taste. I haven't found a way to get it to taste more like a hot chocolate than a coffee.
It seems Spike has found the secret to wooing mares.
And wow has Luna upped her game! I still feel like she's to blame for the Twilight Snoggle situation in the first place, somehow.
8704228
One must wonder why neither Royal Sister has bothered banishing to the moon whichever bitch-ass sissy pony invented such a pathetic, sissy concept as the Americano, never mind the worthless yuppies and hippies who order soy chai lattes.
(I hate to be a snob, but considering how many people think Charbucks counts as anything but mediocre-at-best coffee, somebody has to be.)
8704281
I get the feeling that would require so much chocolate syrup, it would defeat the entire purpose of drinking a coffee...on top of making a single cup of coffee at least 500% your daily requirement of sugar.
8704324
I think my formula would more match Pinkie's. Marshmallow with a hint of coffee.
I've had flavored creamers in milk before. Mocha chocolate was good. Just a hunt of the coffee flavor and smell without overwhelming my taste buds with bitter taste that lingers for over an hour.
8704344
Fun fact: cleanse bitterness from your tongue with something salty! At least, that works for me.