I seldom watch Anime. The ones I do watch, I absolutely like. One of these is Attack on Titan. We binge watched the first season, but I have only been able to watch Seasons 2 and 3 in Netflix recently – when I got an Apple TV 4K (weird flex, but okay). I like Attack on Titan because the story is compelling. I know it’s an Anime, but the cinematography is also deliberate and beautiful. It also has one of my favorite uses of coffee in Anime – ever. Spoilers ahead, you have been warned.

The still chaotic coffee station situation.

If you have watched season 3 (just talking about the Anime, I know the story in the Manga is so much more advanced and may probably not even all be in Season 4), you know that the Humans within the walls are exiles in this one island. They have been isolated from the rest of the world for 100 years when the story of the Anime started. There is one episode in season 3 that explains all this but there is one scene in an earlier episode where the writer hinted that there are more people beyond the walls, and that have stuff that nobody within the walls know about.

In Episode 50 of the Anime, the first Episode of Season 3 Part 2, Armin discovers a pot and three cups scattered in the ground. He informs Erwin that: “They were drinking something like black tea… there were three cups with drops of black liquid in it.”, and he describes the liquid in them as “it smells good, what is this drink?”. This black liquid, my friends, is coffee (or at least I believe it is). Another episode after this shows the warriors drinking “coffee” before the crack of dawn, and they even discard things that look like a grinder and a moka pot/French press hybrid before they get to their positions.

It’s my favorite use of coffee in an anime (well actually, in a series/show) because it’s a seemingly normal thing but loaded with information when you read it between the lines. It’s a tease before the big reveal/twist. It’s different from the reveal that Ymir was once a human turned into a Titan and then turned into a Titan shifter. The warriors, Ymir, those hinted that there was a world outside of the walls. Coffee, however, was the first indicator those who live outside of the walls have things that those within have never even heard of yet.

Now the story says they have inside the walls for 100 years. We know they have tea. It may have happened that coffee was discovered sometime during those 100 years and thus why Eldians (I warned you about spoilers) have no idea what it was. That is why I like how coffee was used. It’s a subtle way to tell the audience that the Marleyans (seriously, I warned you about spoilers) enjoy luxuries that the Eldians in Paradis have been deprived of because of their isolation. This fact gets pointed out clearly in a later episode but this seemingly insignificant discovery of coffee, remember Armin acknowledged that the black liquid smelled good, was a pleasant touch.

Currently drinking Costa Rica El Jaguar roasted by Lakbay Brew, brewed using the Aeropress. Been tinkering around what my favorite method for brewing with the Aeropress is, but so far been liking how Tim Wendelboe does it. I’ve tried some of the World Aeropress championship recipes but those ask for such a large amount of coffee that I don’t really see it as being a sustainable thing to do.

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