Coffee

Coffee is the one thing I've had in nearly every country I've ever set foot in, and it was never the same drink twice — espresso standing at a bar in Italy, sweet condensed milk dripping through a phin in Vietnam, a whipped-sugar cafecito handed through a window in Miami. It's a fruit seed that we set on fire on purpose and then extract with hot water, and every step from the mountainside to the mug changes what lands on your tongue. This is the whole thing: where it came from, how it grows, how it's roasted — including roasting it yourself — every way I know to brew it, everything people put in it, and how to cook with it.