Les Secrets du Café Mythique d'Honoré de Balzac

Balzac's coffee was legendary.

"What a colour! What an aroma! He made it himself, or at least he always presided over the decoction. An expert, subtle, divine decoction, which was as much his as his genius," Léon Gozlan extolled in his biography.

To achieve this result, Balzac left nothing to improvisation: he used a unique cafetière and a meticulous dosage.

The Cafetière of Honoré de Balzac
         

Honoré de Balzac prepared his coffee in a cafetière that was said to be à la de Belloy (also à la Dubelloy and again Du Belloy or Dubelloire), which was gifted to him by Zulma Carraud in 1832 - that is to say, seven years prior to the publication of the Treatise on Modern Stimulants, in which he makes reference to it.

According to the Gourmand Code, as well as the majority of works of that era, good coffee was always prepared with a cafetière à la Dubelloy: "we proposed a thousand methods; we wanted to make coffee: without reducing it to powder, by infusing it cold, by grinding it in the Turkish way, by subjecting it to the autoclave, etc. etc.; all this beautiful creativity gave pitiful results; only one defeated all the rest, and that was the cafetière à la Dubelloy."

Balzac's immortal cafetière, the Master's faithful companion, made from Limoges porcelain, stamped with the initials "HB" and adorned with the Count's Crown of the Balzac d'Entragues family, reigns still on his work table, exhibited at the 'House of Balzac' in Paris, which, out of the novelist's eleven homes, is the only house to remain today.

The dose for Balzac's Coffee
         

Balzac most frequently drank his coffee black, that is to say without milk, very strong the majority of the time, and without sugar. Balzac liked strong coffee, associating as he did the intensity of the coffee in his mouth with its energising force.

Balzac's preparation of coffee was a thoroughgoing ritual: "With dinner finished, he attended to the serious matter of coffee, a remarkable coffee [...]. He made it himself religiously."

The dose recommendations for the preparation of the coffee using the cafetière à la Dubelloy, published in the appurtenant reference works, were all consistent: two to three ounces of coffee for 6 cups, which is approximately 10 to 15 grams per 12cl cup of coffee. This dose would be considered too strong for the majority of people today.

Balzac's legendary coffee will be savoured at its finest when prepared according to the methods of what is termed "gentle extraction", that is to say, filter extraction, using a cafetière à dépression. Nevertheless, Balzac's coffee also has an excellent savour when prepared with a cafetière à piston (French press) or served as an espresso.

The recommended dose today, for a preparation by gentle extraction, is preferably 6 to 8 grams per 12cl cup.

One could easily describe the coffee of the Grand Master by taking inspiration from Théophile Gautier's description of Balzac's eyes:

Balzac's coffee had a life, a light, an inconceivable magnetism. The nectar was pure, limpid and set like a black diamond that every now and then rich gleams of gold illuminated. It was a coffee capable of intimidating the gaze of eagles, of penetrating through walls and hearts, of striking down a rabid wild beast; it was the coffee of a Tamer, of a Ruler.

Références bibliographiques

[1]  GOZLAN, Léon. BALZAC, en Pantoufles. 3ème édition, revue, corrigée et augmentée de deux nouveaux chapitres. Paris : Michel Lévy frères, 1865, p. 41.

[2]  RAISSON, Horace. Code Gourmand, manuel complet de gastronomie. Quatrième édition. Paris : J.-P. Roret, 1829, p. 152.

[3]  NERVAL Gérard de. Article dans La Presse, 7 octobre 1850. In :  Lovenjoul, Charles vicomte de Spoelberch de. Autour de Honoré de BALZAC. Paris : 1897, p. 186.

[4]  WERDET Edmond. Portrait intime de Balzac: sa vie, son humeur et son caractère. Paris : E. Dentu, 1859, p. 349.

[5]  On citera entre autres les ouvrages suivants : Monographie du café: ou, Manuel de l'amateur de café, G.-E. COUBARD D’AULNAY, - 1843, p. 148 ; GIRAUD, M.. Le café perfectionné. Paris : Chez l’auteur, 1846, p. 74. ; Penilleau Auguste. Etude sur le café, au point de vue historique, physiologique, hygiénique. Paris : chez l’auteur, 1864, p. 34.