Diversions Manifold

Caffeine doesn't taste of anything. Extracted, it's a tasteless, dull white powder that has some resale value for caffeine pills and caffeinated drinks thanks to its stimulant properties. In other words, it doesn't add anything to the taste of coffee. As everything else in this world, it is a chemical, one that can be analysed and understood - and can therefore be targeted by other chemicals or processes for removal from its carrier. The most interesting carrier of caffeine is, of course, coffee. Whilst tea is a culturally vital plant that also contains caffeine (roughly half the quantity of coffee when comparing the the drinks), coffee has a deeper culture of drinking for stimulation of the body rather than of conversation. Decaffeination , whether by carbon filter or using solvents such as methylene chloride or ethyl acetate (the latter of which exists in fruits such as apples and pears, leading some marketers to refer to a "natural" decaffeination process),

I play trombone with the Musikfreunde Symphony orchestra in Heidelberg. We rehearse and perform along the university semester cycle, which leads to some intense periods of music; a welcome insight into the world of the musician, without having to be one. This semester we have been working on Dvorak's 9th Symphony, "From the New World", alongside Mussorgsky's "Night on Bare Mountain" and Bruch's Violin Concerto (no use putting any numbers there; he doesn't seem to have written anything else worth performing). We recently had a rehearsal weekend, immersing ourselves in music, and our first two concerts, successfully dispatched in Langenselbold (no, I had no idea, either) and Freiburg. Tomorrow night is our final, crowning concert in the Heidelberg Stadthalle. I want to write a little bit about the Dvorak. For me, it's easy to dismiss - it's popular, for a start, which always makes me suspicious - and even as I tried to disregard its popula