And I forgot the ones that put coconut milk in coffee
There can be a fantastic energy to a typical Spanish bar, especially during the mid-morning when people have their breakfast. The main protagonists are the coffee grinder and the coffee machine—one, obviously enough, produces a fierce grinding sound, and the other hisses like the Mallard letting off steam in Waverley Station. Then, of course, there are the people, who rise to the occasion. As a national characteristic, Spaniards are not quiet, and they do like to talk, sometimes quite loudly. So, with all this grinding and gushing going on, the clientele have to raise their voices a tad. And, in an upward spiral other groups at other tables follow suit, and so it goes on until the bar is as noisy as the engine room of the Titanic. So that is a normal bar: the sort of place you go for a coffee or a beer and some toast, maybe a roll or, if you are in Madrid, churros. It is nothing fancy and just as likely to be on a city street as in a rural village. There was a time, though, when these ...