Issue 42: Seams, Passages & coffee

Right in time for spring, our newest edition lingers with the theme of transition. We’re interested in what passes and fades, and in what strangely persists. The rituals around coffee endure not because they are permanent, but because they are practised. We start with an essay on the peculiar comfort of decent coffee at airports, those liminal places where taste, time zones, and identities blur. Taking off, we sit down with Spanish artist and designer Jaime Hayon, make a spirited defence of pumpkin spice, and step inside El Minutito in Mexico City, a cafe that feels like wandering into a sci-fi novel for your daily cup. Along the way, we meet barista and running obsessive Romain Wyndaele to talk speed, caffeine, and why runner’s high might be a myth, compare London’s street scenes and shopfronts across time, and explore the long, intertwined history of coffee and reading. We travel further and bring you an origin profile of Zambia, trace evolving coffee rituals in Egypt, and end in Venice, a city that—like coffee itself—has learned how to live with constant change. As a special spring treat, all our subscribers will get a fresh copy of Issue 42 with a complimentary coffee sample. This spring, it’s washed Ethiopia Elto coffee by Archers from Dubai—expect flavours of jasmine, lemongrass, pear, and Earl Grey.